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Comment by Bishonen88 | Hacker News Reader

A somewhat related question: If I buy Bitcoin for e.g. $1.000. If the price doubles, how much can I expect to actually get out? I reckon there will be some cost-overhead for the exchange service etc. Am wondering if we're talking about 1%-5% or more like 20%?

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Here's a way to use one of the most popular services, Coinbase, without paying any fees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcCIjIAqM-4

(TL;DR: This trick is legit - you just fund your USD / EUR wallet at Coinbase, then use GDAX (their back end exchange) to buy/sell BTC)

Less than 1% is possible on a reputable exchange.

It's entirely possible to put $1,000 in, end up with $995 of bitcoin, sell when that doubles to $1,990 and get out $1,980.

Then you have tax :)

I am in Australia but I am able to sell for less than 1% quite easy. I think it's easier for Americans.

Also you shouldn't have to worry about slippage with bitcoin unless you're selling $1,000,000+ in one go.

If you observe the order book orders put in at limit around a volume of $100,000 will fill at the limit within minutes or on lower volume exchanges like the ones in Australia you'll be filled at the limit within a few hours at that size.

The market has significant liquidity, and unless you're selling hundreds of million in Bitcoin in a single day on one exchange, you'll be able to cash out just fine.

I've been using coinmate.io and at present the bid and offer are 14195 and 14221 euro or a spread of 0.18%. That's the cheapest I've found. They only do euro although they are London based. I think euro bank transfers are very cheap or free. They are also less painful to verify your passport with than coinbase. I'm not sure they are available to US residents though.

On top of the fees there's another point you have to consider: not all buyers will buy at $2k. You may be able to sell 0.1 BTC, but further buyers will buy at decreasing prices, such as $1950, or $1920 or further down. So for bigger volumes you get less than the current advertised value, which is the max you can get if you sold the minimum amount of BTC.

True, but the spread at GDAX BTC/USD frequently hovers around $0.01, and within $0.05 of the price there'll be 10's of bitcoin available.

A quick check right now had 5.2 BTC (~$86k) on either side of the $0.01 spread. Slippage has plummeted as exchange volume has gone up.

This is called slippage.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/slippage.asp

.25%-.50%

If you dont use professional tools youll pay 1% on Coinbase

The pretty button tax

Why do you ask? Its as robust and liquid of a market as anything else, up to a few million usd.

Fees vary but your probably looking to pay minimum around ~0.25% to convert to fiat. But then you've also got other fees like withdrawing from a wallet if it's not in an exchange, and of course bank transfer fees so hard to say with certainty.

Also taxes I believe.

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