Luno BTC Rand Pricing

[ixian]

Currently on Luno one Bitcoin is trading at about R167,166.
On coinmarketcap.com the price is about $9,332.47.
My currency exchange app shows $9332.47 = R153,965.22.
Luno price diff = +R13,200.78

I understand that each trading platform is a separate market and this creates the average price for Bitcoin, but why is the Luno Rand price consistently higher?

 

[saor]

How does it compare to other local exchanges with ZAR/BTC pairs?

 

[callvm]

Because of supply and demand. There is not one official BTC price. The price is determined on each market by the participants in that market. In SA, there are no large mining operations, so liquidity is all coming from overseas. Those who buy overseas will sell for a higher price in SA, for their efforts

 

[TheRidDlerX]

There's only one more major one that I know of, ice3x and they roughly align by a few hundred bucks. Not checked out Vulr yet (or however u spell it). Luno and ice have always seemed to stay consistently higher than current direct converted price tho, so I guess it's just the initial shock when getting in, later on when u sell should still have the scaled offset, even if at lower

 

[ixian]

Those who buy overseas will sell for a higher price in SA, for their efforts

Not sure what that means?

 

[callvm]

There's only one more major one that I know of, ice3x and they roughly align by a few hundred bucks. Not checked out Vulr yet (or however u spell it). Luno and ice have always seemed to stay consistently higher than current direct converted price tho, so I guess it's just the initial shock when getting in, later on when u sell should still have the scaled offset, even if at lower

VALR is actually doing more daily volume than Luno recently (at least on the BTC/ZAR pair), usually the price difference between the two is less than R500. VALR's fees are much cheaper than Luno's though, so even if the price is slightly higher on there, you can still end up with more BTC buying from VALR and not getting gouged by Luno's 1% taker fees

 

[callvm]

Not sure what that means?

So lets say you go through the effort of buying BTC overseas and it costs you R150k per coin. Now, you would want to sell that for a profit, and not less than (or equal) what you bought it for. Because most of the BTC supply in SA is making its way here from people buying overseas, you will find the prices here are higher.

It's like any item that is scarce in SA and produced overseas. It will be a lot cheaper at its "source", and those who bring it to other markets (like Luno) will want a marked up price

In other words, the people supplying BTC on the sell side are able to determine the price, because they are the ones sourcing that BTC elsewhere and providing it to our market

 

[John Tempus]

Liquidity is the main reason.

There is possibly just a few big players on Luno who actually is setting the market price thus the reason it is usually between 5-7% higher on luno than a straight conversion rate between R/$.

Also keep in mind that this price difference is oddly in line with doing a USD deposit on binance for instance which would cost you about 3% in fee from binance simplex processor and then 3-4% in foreign exchange fee with most SA bank cards which comes to 7% also.

I think Luno is priced in exactly in line with going the direct USD route which makes it pointless to do that unless you have a working card that doesn't apply any foreign exchange % or lower than 3% which capitec used to do until they blocked the card from being used at any exchange citing it as "gambling deposit" lmao.

 

[TheRidDlerX]

VALR is actually doing more daily volume than Luno recently (at least on the BTC/ZAR pair), usually the price difference between the two is less than R500. VALR's fees are much cheaper than Luno's though, so even if the price is slightly higher on there, you can still end up with more BTC buying from VALR and not getting gouged by Luno's 1% taker fees

Nice! Might have to start looking there then. They really lost out by closing the FNB account links. Can't count how many times I've wanted to impulse buy but the 1d deposit waiting time on the Standard Bank account made me think twice

 

[John Tempus]

VALR is actually doing more daily volume than Luno recently (at least on the BTC/ZAR pair), usually the price difference between the two is less than R500. VALR's fees are much cheaper than Luno's though, so even if the price is slightly higher on there, you can still end up with more BTC buying from VALR and not getting gouged by Luno's 1% taker fees

One thing going for Luno is the speed of EFT deposits if you use immediate payment , Ive tested this with discovery and capitec so far and my instant EFT is credited at Luno within 5 minutes. I havn't used luno at all for over a year until recently when I had to get in a BTC purchase and was pleasantly surprised since that day if you don't want to keep funds hanging around on an exchange but want the option to quickly get in by sending funds few minutes before.

I have no experience with VALR or the other SA exchanges but something tells me their EFT deposits do not clear this quickly.

 

[callvm]

Nice! Might have to start looking there then. They really lost out by closing the FNB account links. Can't count how many times I've wanted to impulse buy but the 1d deposit waiting time on the Standard Bank account made me think twice

FNB closed all crypto-related business accounts. VALR only banks with Standard as well. You can get a Standard Bank MyMo account for R4.95 a month. You can register for this online and collect the card at your nearest bank when its ready. Then you can make same-day deposits/withdrawals

 

[callvm]

One thing going for Luno is the speed of EFT deposits if you use immediate payment , Ive tested this with discovery and capitec so far and my instant EFT is credited at Luno within 5 minutes. I havn't used luno at all for over a year until recently when I had to get in a BTC purchase and was pleasantly surprised since that day if you don't want to keep funds hanging around on an exchange but want the option to quickly get in by sending funds few minutes before.

I have no experience with VALR or the other SA exchanges but something tells me their EFT deposits do not clear this quickly.

VALR deposits take about the same amount of time to clear as Luno's do. VALR's withdrawals are better than Luno, as they are processed continuously (so your withdraw goes through as soon as you request it), unlike Luno's that are only done at set intervals

 

[TheRidDlerX]

FNB closed all crypto-related business accounts. VALR only banks with Standard as well. You can get a Standard Bank MyMo account for R4.95 a month. You can register for this online and collect the card at your nearest bank when its ready. Then you can make same-day deposits/withdrawals

Well well. Thanks man. Shame here I'm getting almost as much info as the OP on a different topic. Sorry!

 

[John Tempus]

VALR deposits take about the same amount of time to clear as Luno's do. VALR's withdrawals are better than Luno, as they are processed continuously (so your withdraw goes through as soon as you request it), unlike Luno's that are only done at set intervals

With same time do you mean VALR deposits using any bank instant EFT will show up every time within 5 minutes ? When I quote 5 minutes I literally mean that Luno have credited me in under 5 minutes every single time I have done instant EFT.

 

[callvm]

With same time do you mean VALR deposits using any bank instant EFT will show up every time within 5 minutes ? When I quote 5 minutes I literally mean that Luno have credited me in under 5 minutes every single time I have done instant EFT.

Well, I guess it depends on the bank. But usually as soon as the instruction for instant payment is sent from your bank's side, it will credit the deposit almost immediately.

 

[John Tempus]

Well, I guess it depends on the bank. But usually as soon as the instruction for instant payment is sent from your bank's side, it will credit the deposit almost immediately.

Ok the reason I am asking is because if it doesn't work within the same timeframe every single time it would be an issue that you cant rely on.

I guess I will give VALR a try and see head to head what their deposit times look like compared to Luno but so far ive tested Luno thoroughly with over 100 EFT's and its refreshing to know by now it will show up in under 5 minutes every single time.

 

[ixian]

Well, I guess it depends on the bank. But usually as soon as the instruction for instant payment is sent from your bank's side, it will credit the deposit almost immediately.

That used to be the case with my FNB account, when I transferred to Lunos FNB account it was almost instant as you used your code reference. But FNB closed Lunos account so now I have to send to Lunos Standard bank account which can take up to 2 days.

 

[callvm]

That used to be the case with my FNB account, when I transferred to Lunos FNB account it was almost instant as you used your code reference. But FNB closed Lunos account so now I have to send to Lunos Standard bank account which can take up to 2 days.

You can get a cheapie Standard Bank account if you really need quick deposits, like I mentioned above

 

[John Tempus]

That used to be the case with my FNB account, when I transferred to Lunos FNB account it was almost instant as you used your code reference. But FNB closed Lunos account so now I have to send to Lunos Standard bank account which can take up to 2 days.

That might be an FNB issue not clearing immediate payments instantly as they should be ? Ive never used FNB to Luno back then or now but with Discovery and with Capitec making use of their instant EFT payment it reflects actually as near instant as you could hope for on Luno.

 

[MrGray]

The Luno Rand price premium is largely accounted for by the commissions and hassle it would cost you to convert between currencies. So you could buy at a cheaper dollar price at an offshore exchange and try and sell at a premium locally, but by the time you've converted rands to dollars and jumped through all the other hoops to do this, you will find that the differential is largely cancelled, at least to an extent where it is not worth the effort.