The Arbitrageurs of Crypto

They’re essentially “outsiders”:

They have no devotion to cryptocurrency, don’t care about fundamentals or narratives, and certainly don’t trade on emotions.

Their principle is simple: arbitrage only, never trading.

Recently, articles about “Doll Sister” have gone viral, and in a way, she’s also an arbitrageur, surviving on algorithms, emotional triggers, and traffic differentials.

She and crypto arbitrageurs are fundamentally doing the same thing: finding opportunities in regulatory gaps and maximizing profits through execution.

In this world where speculation and innovation coexist, arbitrageurs are often more clear-eyed than builders.

They spot system vulnerabilities, misaligned incentives, regulatory lags, and human greed.

In this issue, we interviewed several different types of arbitrageurs.

Their stories might reveal something important: making money in crypto can actually be quite stable.

Old Six: Arbitrage Isn’t a Strategy, But a Mindset

I’m Old Six. I entered the crypto world in 2021.

Like many others, I joined during the peak Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) frenzy in mid-2021. A friend in the building materials business who made money by blindly buying in strongly recommended it: “Come on, you can make $10,000 in a day here.”

You can guess what happened: during this dogecoin miracle, he profited while I lost money and became the bagholder. But that experience gave me my first real taste of how market sentiment in crypto can rapidly transform into wealth.

After the final GameFi frenzy at year’s end, a four-year bear market arrived. It was during this bear market that I had time to notice certain phenomena, like price differences between exchanges and rate disparities between BTC/ETH.

At that time, I hadn’t thought about profiting from it yet. I simply noticed that this market had too many misalignments, and the delays between information and price meant money. Later I discovered that information gaps in Web3 could be precisely exploited. That’s how I gradually transformed from an observer into an arbitrageur.

My educational background and day job are somewhat finance-related, but I definitely don’t come from a trading background.

Many people hear “arbitrage” and think it requires technical expertise, sophisticated scripts, and financial mastery. That’s not true. When I first started with arbitrage, it was extremely basic—manual arbitrage. No scripts, no bots, just my eyes, hands, and internet speed.

Later, I began learning to use tools and scripts with another partner. Even though we eventually incorporated some quantitative methods, our core approach remained grassroots trial and error.

I think my grassroots background deeply influenced how I view the crypto world. I have a kind of third-person perspective—I’m not blindly devoted to new finance, nor do I reject technology. I don’t rely entirely on trading but lean more toward arbitrage logic. I go where things are simple with low barriers. Learning by doing, perfecting through practice—that’s always been my process.

Conversely, if I had come from quantitative finance or forex, I might have immediately learned Wall Street’s options hedging playbook, which would have robbed me of many unconventional discoveries.

My first successful arbitrage was in late 2021. At that time, there were frequent price differences for BTC and ETH between Binance and OKX, so I decided to try manual arbitrage.

I bought ETH on Binance for $3,600, while OKX was quoting around $3,630, with a theoretical profit of $30/ETH. But during arbitrage, network congestion is common, and most price gap opportunities only last for minutes or even seconds. By the time I completed the entire operation and settled, I found that after deducting transfer fees, transaction fees, and price movements during the process, my actual net profit was far lower than the apparent price difference.

Although I didn’t make much, I experienced the thrill of arbitrage for the first time.

When evaluating new projects, I mainly look at two aspects. First, I examine fundamentals—basic Total Value Locked (TVL) and on-chain activity, team background, protocol revenue, and community engagement. Second, I assess arbitrage potential, looking for market inefficiencies like uneven liquidity or airdrop mechanism loopholes.

Additionally, I won’t touch a project if it hasn’t formed a price loop. I ask myself three questions: Does this project have verifiable cash flow or revenue logic? Does its mechanism have obvious asymmetry? Are the incentives excessive? If the answers are all “yes,” that signals potential arbitrage opportunities.

Overall, I prefer DeFi and cross-chain projects because they offer more arbitrage possibilities.

Honestly, arbitrage can be quite torturous. It looks like you’re just picking up easy money every day, but in reality, you’re straining your nerves.

You have to deal with delays, volatility, and isolation. People without discipline will quickly be consumed by anxiety.

Another key lesson is knowing when to disconnect. Whether you’ve made or lost money, you can’t obsess over it endlessly.

Turn off your computer when needed, go out for a good meal, play games when you want to. When your body and mind are clear, you spot opportunities more accurately.

I recently bought a fish tank and started raising guppies, which is quite therapeutic outside of work. The secret to raising fish is getting the water right first, then you don’t need daily intervention—they grow on their own. This is very similar to our ultimate goal in arbitrage.

Over these years, I’ve increasingly come to believe: the entire crypto sphere is essentially about arbitrage.

Farming points, hunting airdrops, exploiting subsidies, gaming rules, buying low and selling high—all are essentially exploiting some form of system asymmetry.

Yield farming is a lower-dimensional form of arbitrage, while quantitative trading is a higher-dimensional form, but the underlying spirit is the same: identify inefficiencies and amplify through execution.

That’s why I often say that arbitrage isn’t a strategy but a mindset. The essence isn’t just finding price differences, but upgrading your thinking approach.

It keeps you in a constant cycle of observation, verification, and execution. When you maintain this awareness, you don’t just profit from price differences—you consistently capitalize on them.

When you develop an arbitrage mindset, you realize: the crypto world isn’t a casino; it’s more like a mirror, reflecting each person’s understanding of efficiency, desire, and execution.

Brother Qingshui: Being a Friend of Time

I’m Brother Qingshui. I’ve been doing arbitrage for over 3 years, mainly focusing on primary market IDOs.

I first heard about blockchain in 2020 when I was still in cross-border e-commerce, but business was deteriorating, and I urgently needed to find a new opportunity.

Later, I met some crypto enthusiasts in a paid community and started learning from them. Between 2022 and April 2023, driven by a desire for success, I invested in numerous courses and joined several paid communities in search of profitable opportunities.

Then luck struck—inscriptions appeared in May 2023. I invested $10,000 from my credit card into this opportunity. The inscription market yielded exceptional returns back then. From May through December 2023, my unrealized profits reached millions. However, being my first experience with such market dynamics, I lacked discipline and failed to take profits in time. Eventually, those gains evaporated. Still, the experience proved valuable—I earned enough to clear my debts with some left over, which I invested in Bitcoin.

Since then, I’ve made IDO arbitrage my primary occupation. Every day, besides eating and sleeping, I monitor the latest project information online. I later established my own paid community called “Spark of Stars,” which grew to a thousand members at its peak. I provide daily project updates and operation guides, aiming to help members achieve solid returns through risk-free crypto arbitrage.

If I were to advise newcomers about IDO arbitrage, I’d say: lock in profits promptly and don’t be too ambitious. From personal experience, I once participated in a project called PIPE with an entry cost of just 0.8 USDT. The project became wildly popular, with prices soaring to 8,000 USDT per unit at its peak—over 10,000x returns. I thought I could transform my life with this one trade, so I held without selling. Then it started falling. Perhaps out of stubborn hope, I convinced myself the price would recover and break new highs. The final result was that the coin eventually lost all its value. This profound lesson is one I share with myself and newcomers: avoid greed, make money steadily, and build wealth gradually.

This year hasn’t seen particularly hot IDO projects, so my community has evolved into a more comprehensive one. I share any profitable opportunities with members, including Binance’s Alpha and the Spark Protocol. After time in this market, you realize mindset primarily determines success. Many go from ignoring IDO arbitrage to feeling it’s unattainable, then FOMO in, and finally become bagholders. This typical ‘retail investor’ psychology stems from fantasies about overnight wealth, followed by the harsh reality of market dynamics. Ultimately, it’s about failing to reconcile with oneself while continuing down the wrong path.

Lei: Using Technology to Lock in Profits

I’m Lei, and I’ve been doing arbitrage for 4 years. Currently, I focus on high-frequency arbitrage between multiple DEXs in the Solana ecosystem.

My entry into crypto was somewhat coincidental.

In early 2021, during the initial DeFi boom, I was working in medical sales. By chance, a friend mentioned the thriving DeFi trend, and I followed community guidance to trade altcoins and meme coins. Through this process, I truly experienced the industry’s unique dynamic—“making quick profits through reaction speed and information asymmetry”—and realized the opportunities here differed fundamentally from traditional industries.

The turning point that transformed me from a “participant” to a “dedicated player” came in 2024 when I discovered DEX arbitrage on Solana. At that time, meme coin trading in the Solana ecosystem was experiencing explosive growth with rapidly increasing volumes, but few developers were focused on arbitrage bots. I immediately seized this opportunity, assembled a team of like-minded friends, and started by developing our first arbitrage product based on the Jupiter protocol. We then evolved to a second-generation product supporting on-chain computation, and now to a third-generation solution capable of off-chain precision calculation with manual optimization of trading routes and core algorithms—gradually upgrading our approach to “refined efficiency optimization.”

When I first entered crypto, I followed the crowd into meme coins and trending tokens, but quickly realized this “riding market fluctuations” approach was too unstable: sometimes luck brought profits, but the next volatility wave would erase gains, or worse, projects might vanish entirely. Especially after experiencing the 2022 market correction, I became clear that I didn’t want “one-time windfalls,” but rather a path for steady capital growth. After all, preserving capital while accumulating returns is the only way to survive long-term in this industry.

Currently, my project screening still revolves around “arbitrage potential.” I rely on custom scripts that monitor Solana token trading volumes in real-time. These scripts focus on tokens with sudden volume surges—for instance, when daily trading jumps from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, or when liquidity grows simultaneously across multiple DEXs. Such conditions typically create price disparities and arbitrage opportunities. We add these tokens to our observation pool, calculate price differences and slippage costs across platforms, and determine whether they’re worth incorporating into our strategy.

The arbitrage landscape has transformed over these years, with “continuously rising barriers to entry and increasingly refined competition.”

In the early Solana ecosystem, even basic Python scripts and ordinary servers could yield decent returns by capturing cross-DEX price differences. Now it’s entirely different. Technically, the field has shifted from “basic price difference capture” to “off-chain precision calculation with dynamic route optimization.” Hardware competition has reached extremes—some rent physical servers closest to Solana validation nodes and optimize bandwidth just to shave milliseconds off transaction times. Personnel-wise, teams with traditional quantitative and fintech backgrounds are entering en masse, bringing mature risk models and technical frameworks that dramatically raise competitive barriers.

Looking back, my biggest regret isn’t any specific loss, but rather missing several industry opportunities in the early arbitrage days because I couldn’t master core technologies quickly enough. That sense of powerlessness—“knowing the opportunity exists but watching others profit because you lack technical capability”—is more frustrating than financial losses.

I’ve come to understand that in Web3 arbitrage, especially in rapidly evolving ecosystems like Solana, “technology is the core competitive advantage.” Without solid technical skills, you can identify opportunities but can’t capture them. Because of these regrets, I now prioritize “continuous technical learning.” I dedicate daily time to advanced Rust study, researching on-chain transaction fundamentals, and learning strategy optimization from industry leaders. Even with slow progress, I’m determined not to miss future opportunities due to technical limitations. These experiences taught me a crucial lesson: crypto arbitrage was never about “lucky opportunities,” but about “technological execution.” Only by mastering core technologies and continuously improving can you establish a foothold in this industry without future regrets about missed opportunities.

Qingshan: The Arbitrage Track is Getting Crowded

I’m Qingshan, and I’ve been in crypto for three years.

I discovered the “Web3 Mini Voyage” through the “Wealth Creation Wisdom” knowledge group in late 2022. The comprehensive analysis of crypto in their materials sparked my interest—I sensed an industry full of opportunity where profits seemed readily available.

I connected with many people during that event and gradually integrated into the industry by participating in various activities organized by these crypto veterans.

During my three years in crypto, I’ve explored multiple strategies including secondary market trading, Bitcoin dollar-cost averaging, meme coin investing, and yield farming. Eventually, I discovered that pursuing asymmetric returns suited my temperament best.

I don’t have a finance or trading background. Before going full-time in crypto, I worked as a software developer in traditional industries. Those five years instilled a rigorous approach to evaluating projects. I learned that all programs are human-created, and therefore none deserve 100% trust.

Each year has brought new profit opportunities, and I’ve continuously evolved with the market.

2023 was my most profitable year, when inscriptions were booming and several excellent projects emerged. Back then, I primarily operated solo accounts without leveraging team resources.

In 2024, I participated in Bitget’s financial products at scale, primarily the FUEL launchx activity with its $5,000 account cap, two-day deposit period, and 2% return. While the isolated yield doesn’t sound impressive, the annualized rate was actually quite attractive.

This year, I’ve mainly focused on financial activities from larger projects and Binance’s Alpha points program. The Alpha initiative has been running since January and has provided my most stable cash flow this year, generating six-figure returns from this single opportunity.

This year’s wealth creation has centered around Binance. Following their activities and newly listed projects consistently delivers results. Finding opportunities from Binance’s partnership activities and the “Binance Alpha” list often yields excellent returns. For example, the recent “zerobasezk” financial activity on Binance Wallet offered an annualized return around 16%.

However, I feel the arbitrage space is becoming increasingly crowded, with fewer quality opportunities and shorter windows. It likely won’t exist long-term, as every emerging wealth track follows a predictable pattern: from a few insiders profiting while most remain skeptical, to widespread adoption and profitability, to increasing competition and difficulty, to the rise of knowledge-selling and training (extracting value from newcomers), and finally regression to the mean.

If this track disappears, I’ll simply move elsewhere. I go wherever money can be made, like Hong Kong IPO subscriptions.

My earliest side hustle was actually arbitraging convertible bonds in China’s A-share market. Before new regulations, this was another nearly risk-free opportunity.

Ultimately, profitable niches always exist somewhere—whether in crypto or traditional finance—they’re just different vehicles.

Looking at broader trends, crypto continues to attract steady capital inflows. Whether it’s former President Trump launching his own token or the establishment of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, indicators suggest cryptocurrency is transitioning from a niche investment to mainstream financial asset class. I believe that with time, it will become familiar territory for average investors.

My advice to peers and newcomers:

• Black swan events are inevitable. Prioritize risk management and never go all-in.
• Opportunities abound but capital is limited. Treasure every bit of your principal and maximize its utility.
• Maintain perspective. Treat making money as a skill to be developed gradually—profits will follow with time.

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