Anyone here invest or trade in Bitcoins using a Thai exchange?

[JimmyJ]

I like the idea of selling btc high in Thailand, but then if there as an expat I worry about getting the money out of the country to move it to the US.

 

I've read several posts on TVF that the Thai banks want proof of where the money came from before transferring it out to a foreign bank.

I know that btc are legal and there would be a record of transactions from the Thai BTC exchange used, but it seems like the sort of thing unimaginitive and fearful bankers (in the US also) love to seize on and make an issue of.

 

"Where did the cash come from to buy the original BTC you sold on the Thai exchange? Your US bank? Where did you get it to deposit into your US bank?"

 

Something they don't quite understand - Must be money laundering...

Edited June 1, 2017 by JimmyJ

[fishbrando]

On 3/26/2017 at 0:55 AM, speedtripler said:

 

You set your selling price yourself on bx and localbitcoins , it's impossible to "lock in a loss" 

 

If you want 45,000 per btc, they will not be sold for a penny less, if there is not enough liquidity in the market you can sell slowly and in smaller batches..... 10 at a time usually works well ime but they're are some big fish that buy much larger amounts than that.... 

45000 THB for 1 BTC would be a steal now.  It's come a long way in 2 months...

[Duff]

14 hours ago, Sambotte said:

There is enough liquidity for me on Bx :) For BTC, ETH, and XRP (added recently).

I see orders of 1Mo bahts on the lists everydays, so it depends, if you want to buy/sell 10Mo bhts, Bx could be short :)

 

Prices are around 10-15% more than average market price, but no problem if you buy-sell on the same platform. Or you can buy somewhere else and sell on Bx. And every market has his price, and varying. US, Japan, Korea, China, Europe, there are differences. I think prices in Thailand are like in Japan, around 10-15% up the average price.

 

Not a problem here i would say, volume and prices are ok on Bx. Inscription is very fast, Support is reacting pretty well, bank cash deposit are very easy and quick. Not like some other big exchanges... Bitstamp, Kraken... No support.

 

Localbitcoin is P2P so you have to be carefull, and paiement options are very slow sometimes.

 

Bitcoins.co i think they have a strange fee of 1%.

And Coins.co witch is from Philippines is a brocker, they sell you BTC taking 8-9% fee but on both way i think (buy and sell), so you lose a lot, it's a fee, not a price upper. Normal fee is 0.25% so to compare.

 

Bx.In.th is pretty good i find.

Thanks a lot for this very helpful answer. There may be an arbitrage opportunity here indeed. I need to dig deeper

[silvester2]

You will face problems when you buy BTC abroad and sell BTC in Thailand for THB. You CAN NOT transfer this THB out of Thailand easily. Thai banks want a proof where the money comes from. They do not recognize the transfer of BTC into Thailand. All banks required a SWIFT message for incoming funds. Indeed you will not have that with BTC. At least that is my experience with Citibank, Bangkok Bank, UOB, Standard Chartered, Kasikorn, Krung Thai.

[Shiver]

On 6/2/2017 at 11:01 AM, Duff said:

Thanks a lot for this very helpful answer. There may be an arbitrage opportunity here indeed. I need to dig deeper

I was on the phone last week to my bank (BKK bank) about their $25K per day and $100K per month limit, trying (because Arbitrage) to say I wanted to move a lot more for a small % gain daily but it would all come back to them if I decided to use BTC to change to THB,  They asked me if I had an account (yes of course) and that I needed iBanking (have), how did I open the account (with GF - "no, cannot!" - but I did), what is my passport visa type (no type other than an 'A' visa so couldn't explain that in a way she understood), but still, many questions and never answered my question.  I terminated the call in frustration when I was told I had to go to the bank to open an account - didn't I just say I already had one?  Maybe they can speak English, but that doesn't mean they Understand any meaning behind it.

One more reason (if I needed any more reasons) why I don't want assets in a bank, and proud to say I have very little THB...and for a  very good self preservation reason.

[Sambotte]

Silvester2 the beauty of it is you can transfert your Bitcoins or Altcoins ! On other exchange, on your safe wallet...

Issue can come maybe if you transfert money from exchange to a bank, better to talk to the bank first i think...

 

I agree Shiver :) Well, banks do their job : taking your money, and playing on markets, sometime badly :)

I had a french bank years ago, they did not know how to make a transfert...

And now i have a account with Wells Fargo, and i would be happy... if i could access my money ! I must be stupid like a french, i basically thought a bank could provide this service... Well, not always... I'm suppose to have a US mobile plan with international roaming, with no interruption, to receive those bank-sms...

Waiting a alternate solution by snail-mail ! Can't believe this... And then i will happily initiate a transfert witch will take 3-5 days... Last time i cheked though i was sure we were in 2017, on a small planet Are not we ?

No wonder the digital currency and the blockchain revolution will force bank to adjust (and so many more). Not to mention indeed the random guy you get on the f.. robotic call center...

[DaveBKK]

Arbitrage opportunities never last for long. Last night the difference between BX and Bitstamp was only 2%, hardly worth the bother of transferring around.

 

Also, it seems no one here has *read* the terms and conditions on BX, specifically:

 

The customer must agree never to exchange currencies purchased from the Website for any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.  The customer must also guarantee that any crypto-currency the customer sells at the Website have never been involved in exchange with any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.

 

For national currency deposits the company will accept only Thai Baht; all deposits must involve only Thai Baht and no other foreign currencies. All Thai Baht deposits must originate within Thailand. Any deposits sent in other foreign currencies, or originating from outside Thailand, will be rejected and forfeited.

 

 

[JimmyJ]

On 6/5/2017 at 0:15 AM, Sambotte said:

And now i have a account with Wells Fargo, and i would be happy... if i could access my money ! I must be stupid like a french, i basically thought a bank could provide this service... Well, not always... I'm suppose to have a US mobile plan with international roaming, with no interruption, to receive those bank-sms...

Waiting a alternate solution by snail-mail ! Can't believe this... And then i will happily initiate a transfert witch will take 3-5 days... Last time i cheked though i was sure we were in 2017, on a small planet Are not we ?

No wonder the digital currency and the blockchain revolution will force bank to adjust (and so many more). Not to mention indeed the random guy you get on the f.. robotic call center...

Wells Fargo (in the USA)  told me that a client can purchase a yubikey or some other sort of hardware authenticator (I don't recall which one was mentioned) and they would work with that for sending codes.

(They won't reimburse for the cost of the purchase - might've been about $30 - $40 USD).

Edited June 7, 2017 by JimmyJ

[JimmyJ]

34 minutes ago, DaveBKK said:

Arbitrage opportunities never last for long. Last night the difference between BX and Bitstamp was only 2%, hardly worth the bother of transferring around.

 

Also, it seems no one here has *read* the terms and conditions on BX, specifically:

 

The customer must agree never to exchange currencies purchased from the Website for any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.  The customer must also guarantee that any crypto-currency the customer sells at the Website have never been involved in exchange with any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.

 

For national currency deposits the company will accept only Thai Baht; all deposits must involve only Thai Baht and no other foreign currencies. All Thai Baht deposits must originate within Thailand. Any deposits sent in other foreign currencies, or originating from outside Thailand, will be rejected and forfeited.

 

 

Ouch!

I won't be using them.

[Duff]

On 6/7/2017 at 1:13 PM, DaveBKK said:

Arbitrage opportunities never last for long. Last night the difference between BX and Bitstamp was only 2%, hardly worth the bother of transferring around.

 

Also, it seems no one here has *read* the terms and conditions on BX, specifically:

 

The customer must agree never to exchange currencies purchased from the Website for any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.  The customer must also guarantee that any crypto-currency the customer sells at the Website have never been involved in exchange with any foreign currency other than Thai Baht.

 

For national currency deposits the company will accept only Thai Baht; all deposits must involve only Thai Baht and no other foreign currencies. All Thai Baht deposits must originate within Thailand. Any deposits sent in other foreign currencies, or originating from outside Thailand, will be rejected and forfeited.

 

 

Ouch... Anyone here has had any luck transferring bitcoins or altcoins from abroad (from Kraken or Poloniex for instance) to a local a Thai exchange and withdraw Thai bahts to their Thai bank account?

[chingching]

On 6/9/2017 at 11:32 AM, Duff said:

Ouch... Anyone here has had any luck transferring bitcoins or altcoins from abroad (from Kraken or Poloniex for instance) to a local a Thai exchange and withdraw Thai bahts to their Thai bank account?

do it all the time,  why would u think there is a problem?

[Shiver]

If BX terms were taken as written then nothing would move ever.  I guess that for them to operate they have to be seen to be proactive in terms of capital controls for the country which I can understand, but even I could write clearer terms than that and I have zero legal copy expertise.

 

Thankfully for us their rates can at times be pretty decent when volatility is low (never the best, but good enough).

 

Some exchanges won't send to other exchanges and you have to drop them in your wallet first.  I opened accounts at BX and COINS just to get the verification out of the way and be able to be nimble if/when I have to (I don't like to hold much Gov-coin, except when I have to get money in THB and fast such as a hospital event), but haven't used them yet (likely will do within a month or so just as a top-up - hoping to avoid external wire deposits and all that chicanery that banks do,  If Thailand could see what they're missing out on by restricting us they'd change policy in a femtosecond.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Shiver

[Jawun82]

So is it worth it to continu to exchange foreign currency via BX? What are the risks? for what amount by month?

[djlest]

hmm interesting i wish there was a dedicated forum for english speaking crypto traders over here, it certainly is a bit of a mine field and more reliable peoples opinions and experience are needed.

i for one am a bit concerned about BX.in th 

Im not that convinced about how long they are going to stay open since India, china, s korea, bali are all trying to scare crypto traders away.
HAving said that thailand did ban and then life the ban on crypto trading a few years back, but that means nothing as they are always changing what they say and do.
Also BX.in.th is quite primitive in regards to trading, they dont even have stop losses or alarms on their charts. and they did a server update during during the day time on a friday when bitcoin was going through one of its biggest moves. it was absolutely ludicrous as the update was supposed to be scheduled at 8am and went on all day. who does server updates in the daytime on a friday?
i really hope BX they start to improve their front end and keep it going despite the tough stance this year thats coming. they also have very limited instructions on the site and it just feels amateurish still. i dont see any improvements or planned improvements either.

Edited January 21, 2018 by djlest

[leemo]

Duff: Arbitrage is real, I do it all the time.

 

For the past 17 years my income from the UK was transferred via bank/xe/transferwise etc., more or less at bank/mid rate less commissions and whatever else they could steal.

 

Now my agent buys BTC or ETH in the UK using my funds, sends the coins to me here in Thailand, and a few minutes later I cash them in through bx in THB at generally 10-12% above the extortionate rates I was getting before. Yes it does work, whether through bx or coins.

 

https://bx.in.th/ref/0esUlo/

 

Edited January 26, 2018 by leemo