High-frequency arbitrage
Exchanges function by receiving orders to buy or sell a certain quantity of a certain asset, at a certain price (e.g. ‘I am willing to buy 37 Ethereum at $1,825.09’, ‘I am willing to sell 6 Ethereum at $1,825.33’). These orders constitute an ‘order book.
As there are different supply and demand on the various exchanges at a given point in time, their respective order books differ.
As a result, ‘arbitrage opportunities’ often arise. They constitute abnormal situations where one can, at the same time, buy an asset on one platform at a certain price, and sell the same asset on another platform at a higher price. For example, one could maybe buy Ethereum at $1,825.09 and sell it at $1,825.13 at the same time, pocketing a $0.04 profit per Ethereum.
This only works if:
- The trading infrastructure is fast enough so that these two actions are almost simultaneous. Microseconds to even nanoseconds apart.
- The algorithm detects and repeats this action thousands if not millions of times a day so that, summed up, the profits amount to significant returns.
- The fees paid to make these transactions are lower than the profits.
Given that the assets are almost bought and sold right away, no position is held over time. Whether the future price of these assets increases or decreases becomes irrelevant, making this strategy market-neutral.
Market making
There's an entity that is needed at all times for any market to run smoothly: market makers. They buy assets from sellers, and sell assets to buyers. Market makers provide liquidity to the markets in return for profits that come from the difference in their quoted buy price and sell price. This difference is called spread.
Most of the time, the buying demand roughly averages out the selling demand, which makes the market position of the market makers unchanged. During the time of high volatility when there is more selling demand than buying demand or vice versa, Neverless Strategies™ automatically hedges any net exposures & potential losses arising from fulfilling market orders.
In this strategy, Neverless Strategies™ generates money by operating as a market maker. The difference between the spread collected from buying and selling at the same time and the transactional cost of hedging, is the profit made.
Passive liquidity provision to decentralised trading pools
Decentralised trading pools (also known as automated market makers) need liquidity to ensure traders can buy or sell conveniently at any time. By providing liquidity to these pools, the liquidity provider earns a share of the fees paid by traders.
When obtaining and depositing these assets to the pools, one is exposed to the future price of these assets. To offset this exposure, Neverless Strategies™ automatically opens short positions on these assets and dynamically maintains such hedges in order to achieve market neutrality.
The difference between the fees collected from traders and the hedging cost is the profits generated from this strategy.
Funding rate arbitrage
Some of the derivative exchanges allow traders to periodically pay a ‘funding’ fee in order to use borrowed money. In other words, take leverage on their position. If one assumes the opposite position of the net open interest of these traders, they will receive this periodic funding fee.
Neverless Strategies™ automatically scans all markets for high funding fee opportunities and opens appropriate positions to collect such fees, while at the same time opening hedging positions to offset the market exposure and be protected from potential losses.
