Okay, this is irritating. I have REPEATEDLY said there is risk. I have NEVER denied it. I have explained it several times. There is some exchange risk, though most of it is perceived rather than real. Legit money will vet that risk, but they are not permitted by contracts and location to trade on unregulated markets. There is risk of the trade moving heavily against you, forcing posting of additional collateral. And yes, Bitmex has been seriously accused of market making schemes (and Bitfinex). Both are likely true. Binance, far less likely, and ftx has personally demonstrated to me their integrity, so I have my own reasons for trust on that score.
Sig you have defined this thing in a very good fashion (IMHO) .. LOL CME it gets best of the both worlds..some clever person at CME must have thought how can we avoid the stigma of these thinly regulated exchanges on one hand and on the other get a piece of action! I hope they do same with FX futures more aggressively too. so the entire Market maker unregulated OTC FX (FXCM USA) gets a kick on the backside CME uses unregulated exchanges to get reference prices,
MF global... that was the FCM fraud not exchange fraud or exchange going out of business There is a diff. However it is true that unlike SIPC Futures broker clients don't get that much protection. Only in UK the FCA covers everybody
Sure you can trust it is your own money and sure that arb ( carry trade really) exists as you have shown however it is equally irritating that this thing is promoted as if "look here is a golden opportunity" without digging deep in to the risk side at the same time
Bone - Can this be called a legit arb? or just a SPOT future carry trade - Somebody further in thread said that there is no cost of carry on the SPOT side? How though? the FiAT currency one needs to use to get BTC SPOT position means that capital is not earning interest so that is a cost ! - Also do you agree that the two will 100% converge on expiry of the OTC Futures contracts In similar fashion I saw you tubers promoting GOLD SPOT CFD (OTC ) against GOLD Futures CFD ( OTC )... with a Market maker type OTC broker.... and if taht is so easy to do ( lie the BTC example) would a OTC broker like it?
It’s more of a legit Arb than most trades I’ve heard called “Arbs” on this site. If you’re doing BTC spot vs. BTC futures - technically speaking its a basis trade, but other than the convenience yield there’s not much “basis” to it.
it was speculated on another chat that the margin makes the trade unattractive and the rising spot is to compensate for that. This does not appear to be the case.
There is a reason why EFP market exists - it's not really risk free rate but more like the mean funding rate for delta-one desks. The futures trade at a premium to spot becuse of the inability to immediately collapse the arbitrage and thus exposing you to a margin mismatch on a tail move. The calendar basis is just a proxy for the spot margin basis and is an expectaton of a spot basis (that's why it's usually smaller than spot/prompt). This is especially true in cryto which does not have a developed funding/lending market. There is also a meaningful risk of getting a nasty settlement print that you can't trade It's an arbitrage in a technical sense, but the microstructure makes it a risky arbitrage. Similarly, for example, a VIX settlement trade is an arbitrage in a technical sense but the microstructure makes it pretty risky and a well known firm has blown up on it. By that definition, treasury basis is a legit arb - you should mention it to the couple teams that blew up at Millennium last spring. Cost of leverage in crypto is incredibly high and you don't need to do anything fancy as long as you can source leverage and take some mismatch risk. There is a whole yield farming industry doing this - while the risk is there, you get amply compensated for it.