No doubt there arb opportunities galore in the crypto space. You could even make tons of money oper the course of years and still loose it to some 17 year old who hacked the exchange or your wallet. There many kinds of risks I can take in order to make money - trading this unregulated market is not one of them. Last time I researched this there were crypto futures trading on regulated exchanges in London and Chicago but the cost of carry was negligible...
I agree. It seems like for futures you can get a great broker even in the retail world. That broker will use a decent risk management system that doesn't cause you any troubles. Regarding stocks, options and international markets I haven't found a broker that beats IB yet. The ones I found will only talk to you if you a bring a couple of millions to the table... Maybe you have different experiences in that context? You mention fx arb. Let's take this example: See the screenshot attached. Cross currency basis swaps in KRW yield 1% over a year. They can be replicated with exchange traded derivatives. That's the same example trade as you mentioned with crypto. Borrow in USD and invest in higher yielding instrument. While it is possible for prop firms and banks to set sth up in korea retailers with IB are not allowed to trade KRW. With leverage this could easily be a highly profitable trade with a hedged fx risk and a hedged credit risk.
because instead of buying something for 100k that might 10x or not I'd much rather borrow 100m for 3% floating and put it into a hedged carry trade that yields 10% fixed p.a. When it crashes, borrowing rates go down and I increase my profit and when it pumps I can hedge my DV01 with futures spreads. I want to provide liquidity for the monkeys that bet on price and need leverage for that.
The reason why IB doesn't allow you to trade KRW is because Korea has capital restrictions on their currency and nobody outside Korea can settle KRW. If you figure out how to structure a synthetic KRW to trade it against an NDF that yields 1% you're in the money On the other hand you could have a look at the EURUSD forward curve vs the EURUSD volatility surface. Right now it's probably the biggest risk arb you can put on in terms of size IF you know how to structure a position and manage your inventory
Forget that kind of FX arb I would suggest. You can either do arb via Futures, looking for deviations on intras e.g., every better futures broker allow you to get exchange and span margins here. Then you can build up something pretty fast with the low margins you need. Or if you really want swap arb on FX, I would look on different brokers on their swaps for different currencies on their long and short side and take an arbitrage opportunity among different brokers there. You can achieve here about 5% per month with no directional risk, you only need to transfer some money from one account to another account from time to time because of the underlying volatility. There are plenty of opportunities where there are such huge swap differences among FX brokers in the same FX pair that you can profit from them even when you choose among only the more reputable brokers. Last, if you really want that kind FX arb you mentioned do not forget you do not overleverage. Anything higher leverage than 5 is too much here. There are longterm studies, that all is already examined what are you looking for.
Which years are you referring to? Swap rate arb among brokers does not exist for a long time anymore. I exclude all shady brokerages or bucketshops which might offer anything to attract naive individuals.