People arbitraging in the cryptocurrency circle
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People arbitraging in the cryptocurrency circle
No trading, only arbitrage.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Ada, TechFlow
This year's crypto market hasn't been lively.
The altcoin market has generally been bleak—few people have managed to profit consistently, except for a handful of on-chain trading experts.
Yet within this seemingly quiet market, there remains a group quietly making money.
They're even somewhat "outsiders":
They don’t believe in cryptocurrencies, care little about fundamentals or narratives, and don’t trade based on sentiment.
Their principle is simple: arbitrage only, no trading.
Recently, the viral article about "Doll Sister" went around. In a way, she too is an arbitrageur—surviving through algorithms, emotion, and traffic arbitrage.
She and crypto arbitrageurs are essentially doing the same thing: finding opportunities in the gaps of rules, amplifying profits through execution.
In this world where speculation coexists with innovation, arbitrageurs are often clearer-headed than builders.
They see system vulnerabilities, misaligned incentives, rule delays, and human greed.
In this issue, we interviewed several different types of arbitrageurs.
Their stories might show us: earning in crypto can also be stable.
Arbitrage Lao Liu: Arbitrage isn’t a strategy—it’s a mindset
I'm Lao Liu, entered crypto in 2021.
Like many others, it was probably during mid-2021, the peak wave of DOGE and SHIB. A friend who runs a building materials business recommended me strongly after blindly buying and actually making money: "Come on, you can earn $10k here in one day."
You can guess what happened: he profited from that Doge miracle; I lost money and became the bagholder. But that experience made me truly realize for the first time that in crypto, market sentiment can quickly turn into wealth.
Then, after the final chain game craze at year-end, a four-year bear market arrived. It was precisely during this bear market that I had time to observe certain phenomena—like price differences between exchanges, BTC/ETH exchange rate gaps.
At the time, I hadn't thought about profiting from them yet. I just felt that this market had too many inefficiencies—that delay between information and price is money. Later, I realized that information asymmetry in web3 can be precisely exploited. That’s how I gradually evolved from observer to arbitrageur.
My academic background and job are slightly related to finance, but I’m not from a trading background at all.
When people hear “arbitrage,” they often assume it requires advanced tech, high-end scripts—the domain of financial experts. Actually, my initial arbitrage was very primitive: manual brick-moving. No scripts, no bots—just eyes, hands, and internet speed.
Later, I teamed up with another partner to learn tools and scripting. Even when we incorporated some quant elements later, the core remained grassroots trial-and-error iteration.
So I think my grassroots background deeply shaped how I view crypto—I approach it with a third-party perspective. I don’t idolize new finance, nor do I reject technology. I don’t rely solely on trading; I lean toward arbitrage logic. Wherever it’s simpler and lower-barrier, that’s where I go. Learn by doing, refine through practice—that’s always been my process.
Conversely, if I’d come from a quant or forex background, I might have learned Wall Street-style hedging with options right away—and missed out on the fun of unconventional paths.
My first successful arbitrage was at the end of 2021, when BTC and ETH frequently showed price differences between Binance and OKX. I considered trying manual brick-moving.
I bought ETH at 3600 on Binance while OKX quoted around 3630—$30/ETH theoretical profit. But network congestion is common during arbitrage, and most price gaps last only minutes or even seconds. By the time I completed the entire transfer operation and settled, after deducting transfer fees, transaction costs, and price fluctuations, my actual net profit was far below the surface spread.
Not much gain, but I tasted the joy of arbitrage for the first time.
Facing numerous new projects in the market, I mainly focus on two aspects: first, fundamentals—basic metrics like TVL, on-chain activity, team background, protocol revenue, and community热度. Second, arbitrage potential—assessing whether inefficient market opportunities exist, such as uneven liquidity or loopholes in airdrop mechanisms.
Also, I won’t touch any project that hasn’t formed a closed pricing loop. I ask myself three questions: Does this project have verifiable cash flow or yield logic? Is its mechanism obviously asymmetric? Are incentives excessive? If all answers are “yes,” then there may be arbitrage space.
Overall, I prefer DeFi and cross-chain projects because they offer more arbitrage opportunities.
To be honest, arbitrage is really exhausting. On the surface, you’re farming daily yields; in reality, you’re draining your nerves.
You deal with latency, volatility, and loneliness. Without discipline, anxiety will consume you quickly.
Also important is learning to shut down. After a win or a loss, never stubbornly push forward.
Close the laptop when needed, go out for a good meal, play games. Only when your body and mind are fresh can you spot opportunities more accurately.
Recently bought a fish tank, started learning to raise guppies—very therapeutic alongside work. The key to fishkeeping is first cultivating good water conditions, then avoiding constant interference—letting life grow naturally. That’s very much like our ultimate goal in arbitrage.
These years, I’ve increasingly believed: the entire crypto industry is essentially arbitrage.
Earning points, farming airdrops, grabbing subsidies, gaming rules, buying low and selling high—these are all fundamentally exploiting some kind of system asymmetry.
Farming is low-dimensional arbitrage; quant is high-dimensional—but their soul is the same: discover inefficiency, amplify through execution.
That’s why I often say, arbitrage is not a set of strategies, but a way of thinking. It’s not merely spotting price differences, but upgrading your mindset.
It keeps you in a continuous cycle of observation, validation, and execution. When you sustain this awareness, you don’t just earn from spreads—you become someone who can keep earning from spreads.
Once you possess arbitrage thinking, you’ll realize: crypto isn’t a casino—it’s more like a mirror, reflecting each person’s understanding of efficiency, desire, and execution.
Qingshui Ge: Be a friend of time
I'm Qingshui Ge, doing arbitrage for over three years, mainly focusing on primary market new launches.
I first heard of blockchain in 2020, when I was still running cross-border e-commerce, but business kept declining—I urgently needed a new outlet.
Later, in a paid community, I met some people from crypto and began learning from them. At that time, I desperately wanted success, so from 2022 to April 2023, I purchased many courses and joined numerous paid groups, hoping to find profitable opportunities.
Luckily, in May 2023, inscriptions started appearing in the market. I withdrew 10,000 yuan from my credit card and started playing with inscriptions. Back then, it was incredibly easy to make money—from May 2023 to year-end, my unrealized gains peaked at tens of millions. But since it was my first encounter with such a novel concept and I lacked discipline, I didn’t lock in profits in time, and eventually saw most gains reverse. Still, this experience gave me a taste of success—I cleared my debts and had surplus funds, which I used to buy Bitcoin.
Since then, I've made new-launch arbitrage in crypto my main career. Aside from eating and sleeping, I spend every moment online tracking the latest project updates. Later, I founded my own paid community “Xingxing Zhi Huo” (Spark of Fire), which once had over a thousand members. Every day, I update members with the latest project info and write detailed operation guides, aiming to help a group of people achieve solid returns through risk-free arbitrage in crypto.
If I were to give advice to newcomers on new-launch arbitrage, it would be: lock in profits promptly—don’t get greedy. From my own experience, I once faced a deeply regretful incident. I participated in a project called PIPE, with a cost as low as 0.8u. The project became extremely popular, peaking at 8000u per token—over 10,000x return. I thought this was my big break, so I held on without selling. Perhaps out of stubbornness, I hoped the price could rebound again, even surpass its all-time high—so I stayed in. But in the end, the token went to zero. This was a profoundly painful lesson. I often use this story to warn myself and newcomers: don’t be greedy; build wealth steadily and grounded.
This year, there haven’t been particularly hot new-launch projects, so my community has gradually transformed into a comprehensive one—sharing any project that generates profit, such as Binance Alpha, Spark Protocol, etc. Having been in this market for a while, I’ve seen that mindset is what primarily affects profitability. Many people initially ignore new-launch arbitrage, then later feel it’s unattainable, then FOMO in, and finally end up holding bags. This is classic lambo psychology—many dream of overnight riches, only to be slapped by reality. Ultimately, they fail to reconcile with themselves, drifting further down the wrong path.
Lei Zi: Locking in profits with technology
I'm Lei Zi, doing arbitrage for four years now. Currently, I mainly focus on high-frequency arbitrage across multiple DEXs within the Solana ecosystem.
My entry into the crypto industry was somewhat accidental.
In the early days of the 2021 DeFi boom, I was working in traditional healthcare sales. By chance, a friend mentioned the ongoing DeFi craze in the space, so I followed communities and tried trading altcoins and meme coins. Through this process, I truly experienced the industry’s unique logic: "quick profits through reaction speed and information asymmetry," and for the first time realized the distinct opportunities hidden here, unlike traditional industries.
The turning point that shifted me from “participant” to “dedicated practitioner” came in 2024 when I got into DEX arbitrage on Solana. At that time, meme coin trading on Solana was experiencing explosive growth, with volumes rising sharply. Yet few developers focused on building arbitrage bots. I immediately seized this opportunity, teaming up with a few like-minded friends. We started by developing our first-generation arbitrage product based on the Jupiter protocol, then iterated to a second-generation version supporting on-chain computation, and now have a third-generation solution capable of off-chain precise calculation, manually optimized routing, and refined core algorithms—gradually upgrading our arbitrage strategy into “fine-grained efficiency optimization.”
When I first entered crypto, I played meme coins and chased trending tokens with the community. But I soon discovered that the model of “profiting from price swings” was too unstable—sometimes I’d earn by luck, only to lose it back in the next volatility, or even face rug pulls, risking total capital loss. Especially after experiencing the 2022 market correction, I became clear: I didn’t want “one-time windfalls,” but a path for steady capital growth. After all, protecting principal and accumulating returns is the only way to survive long-term in this industry.
Currently, my core logic for project selection revolves around “arbitrage demand.” Daily operations rely on self-written scripts that monitor real-time trading volume of tokens on the Solana chain. The script focuses on tokens with “sudden volume spikes”—for example, a token jumping from hundreds of thousands to millions in daily trading volume, or showing increased liquidity across multiple DEXs. These situations often create price volatility and thus arbitrage opportunities. We add such tokens to our watchlist and further calculate cross-platform price differences and slippage costs to determine whether integrating an arbitrage strategy is worthwhile.
Looking back at changes in the arbitrage space over recent years, the trend is clear: “barriers keep rising, competition grows increasingly refined.”
In the early days of Solana’s ecosystem, even a simple Python script on an ordinary server could generate solid returns by capturing cross-DEX price gaps. But today, it’s completely different. Technically, players have shifted from “basic gap capture” to “off-chain precision calculation + dynamic routing optimization.” Hardware-wise, competition is extreme—some rent physical servers closest to Solana validator nodes and customize bandwidth optimization just to shave off a few milliseconds in transaction latency. On the talent side, more teams with traditional quant and fintech backgrounds are entering, bringing mature risk management models and technical frameworks, dramatically raising the industry’s competitive bar.
Looking back now, my biggest regret isn’t any specific loss, but failing to crack core technologies early in the arbitrage race—missing several major industry opportunities. That feeling of “knowing the opportunity was there but lacking the technical capability to seize it, watching others profit instead”—is far more frustrating than losing money.
Later, I gradually understood that in Web3 arbitrage, especially in fast-evolving ecosystems like Solana, “technology is the core competitiveness.” Without strong technical skills, even if you spot an opportunity, you can’t capture it. Precisely because of these regrets, I now place immense value on “continuously advancing technical expertise.” I dedicate time daily to studying advanced Rust, researching the underlying logic of on-chain transactions, and learning strategy optimization from industry tech leaders. Even if progress is slow, I refuse to miss the next market opportunity due to “inadequate skills.” Ultimately, these regrets have fully awakened me: crypto arbitrage has never been about “catching chances by luck,” but “seizing them through technology.” Only by mastering core technologies early and continuously improving capabilities can one stand firm in the industry and avoid new regrets born of “insufficient ability.”
Qingshan: The arbitrage赛道 is getting crowded
I'm Qingshan, been in crypto for three years.
I first got involved at the end of 2022 through an event in the “Shengcai Youshu” knowledge circle, participating in the “Web3 Xiao Hanghai” program. The comprehensive analysis and description of crypto in the study materials sparked my desire to join this industry—I felt it was full of opportunities, pure gold everywhere.
Through that event, I met many people and gradually connected with and integrated into this industry via various activities hosted by veteran crypto participants.
Over the past three years in crypto, I’ve tried everything: trading on secondary markets, dollar-cost averaging into Bitcoin, gambling on shitcoins, farming rewards. Eventually, I found asymmetric-return strategies better suited to my rhythm.
I don’t have a finance or trading background. Before going full-time into crypto, I worked in software development in traditional industries. Five years in software taught me to scrutinize projects more rigorously. After all, all programs are written by humans—and I don’t trust code 100%.
Each year brings new profit-making trends, and I keep learning and iterating along with the market.
2023 was my most profitable year—inscriptions were hot, and some excellent projects emerged. But back then, I mainly operated single accounts and didn’t consider leveraging manpower.
In 2024, I batch-participated in Bitget’s financial products, mainly the FUEL launchx campaign—$5,000 per account, two-day deposit period, 2% return. The nominal yield isn’t high, but annualized, it’s quite decent.
This year, I’ve mainly joined large-scale financial events and Binance’s Alpha point campaigns. The Alpha campaign started at the beginning of the year and has indeed been the most stable cashflow generator for me this year—single-project earnings already exceed six figures.
This year’s wealth effect is largely concentrated on Binance. Paying attention to Binance’s events and newly launched projects won’t lead you astray. Looking for projects from Binance’s partnered campaigns and the “Binance Alpha” list can uncover solid opportunities. For example, the recent “zerobasezk” financial event in Binance Wallet offered around 16% annual yield.
But I feel the arbitrage赛道 is becoming increasingly crowded—good opportunities are dwindling, time windows shrinking. Long-term sustainability seems unlikely—every emerging赛道 follows this pattern: first a few profit while most remain skeptical, then more join and profits rise, difficulty increases, then knowledge monetization and training booms emerge as outsiders seek gains, finally regressing to the mean.
If this赛道 ceases to exist in the future, I’ll shift battlefields. Go wherever money can be made—perhaps Hong Kong stock IPOs.
My earliest side hustle was A-share convertible bond new-issue subscriptions. Before the new CB regulations, it was nearly risk-free.
In short, easy-money areas will always exist—whether in crypto or convertible bonds, they’re just vehicles.
From an industry trend perspective, crypto is a sector seeing continuous capital inflow. From former U.S. President Trump issuing his own token to the establishment of Bitcoin ETFs and Ethereum ETFs, the crypto industry is clearly transitioning from niche to mainstream visibility. I believe over time, it will become a widely recognized industry.
Advice for peers or newcomers:
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Black swans will happen. Prioritize risk management—never go all in.
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Opportunities are plenty, capital is limited. Cherish every dollar of principal—make it deliver maximum value.
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Maintain a calm mindset. Treat profit-making as a skill to hone—earnings will follow with time.
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