Alternatives to Gemini / "con-base", for getting $ in and out of the market through

I've been trying to work on the arbitrage aspect of the market and there are a lot of good angles, but I'm finding it very difficult to get initial money into the market without insane fees. Coinbase aka Con-base, hyper inflates the market price of all 3 coins on the buy side, then lessens it on the sell side. Gemini does this also. Someone asked me to send them $40 of BTC yesterday so I went on CB and didn't even look at the fees. They charged me $15.43 to send $40 bucks. Obv my fault for not reading. lol.

So if the coin pricing is hyper inflated, and it seems you lose around 6-7% to transfer from CB to another exchange. Is there a cheaper way to get money into the market to trade with?

To send that same amount via litecoin would have been like .05
Its one of the many drawbacks to the BTC network, the high fees and really long transaction times.

I dont really see an issue, on coinbase and Gdax if you have the price set and others come in and buy or sell to take your prices they pay the fee.
The ones taking and giving the coins are the ones on coinbase putting money into and out of the market.
If people weren't paying the fees on coinbase, then I would be paying them on Gdax to keep the gdax/coinbase pair up and running.

So I have no issues with people buying and selling 3% to get in or out of the markets, I dont pay when I sell on Gdax when I use a limit order.

I agree, but I'm just saying - there are alternatives. I set up an account with Gemini and they're BTC price is usually closer to real market than Coinbase. Their ETH is typically within a few dollars where it doesn't make a difference, and you can deposit with them, and they give you immediate trading at the time of deposit, even though they don't draw the ACH from your account for a few days. It beats Coinbase when you buy at a certain price but can't trade on it for 4-5 days until the coins are "delivered". Buying on CB is almost like buying 'Futures' LOL. You can actually lose money over 4-5 days and not be able to do anything to change it.

Sorry I sidetracked my own post about the BTC fees, those are relatively static and known across the platform. I think my main question really was about getting money in and out of the market, where you're buying in a hyper inflated % and then stuck waiting for a week to hope you still get even that much. When its shooting up its good, but there's going to be a lot of people in a day or two who bought for the first time on CB when LTC and ETH were spiking, and they're going to be realizing losses instead of gains and there's not a damn thing they can do about it till those coins 'deliver'. The only caveat on Gemini is you can't transfer those funds out until the ACH clears, but they give the option to 'sell for USD', so even if something is tanking you can put the $ on ice, buy/sell limit orders and ride it up and down before they even pull from your acct. I experimented with it yesterday. They allow max of $500 per day on ACH and wire is higher. But I did the ACH and was able to make $300 doing a few trades back and forth as prices fluctuated. Then I sold for usd and now it's parked again for the next round.

So in the immediate trade-ability function, and closeness to market price I think Gemini seems better. Are there any others out there that can do the same for even less?

Coinbase/Gdax seem great until you realize these fees and inflationary values are unique. But for now they're also the biggest, at least in the US.

One thing I didn't understand is that if I want to put $100 into a coin via CB it now takes a 3-5 days for that transaction to appear. What the hell? If I transfer money to GDAX it takes a full week, but then I can buy immediately. This is why mining is so great -- it allows me to have the coins in my wallets, which I can then transfer to any exchange that I choose (Binance is highest/best for me at this moment).

I realize as well that this entire mining/coin thing is in absolute infancy, with a lot of movers and shakers yet to grab their corner and draw their straws. Coinbase is just the first big US exchange out of the gate. I can only imagine how many others will appear next year.