In the cryptocurrency market, the same asset almost always trades on different exchanges with a slight price difference. For an arbitrageur, this gap is not an obstacle but a source of income: buy cheaper on one platform and sell higher on another. However, in practice, such discrepancies rarely exceed fractions of a percent and exist for only a few seconds. Manual trading is useless here — by the time a trader notices the spread and places two orders, the opportunity has already vanished.
The Arbitron platform automates this process, taking over monitoring and trade execution. The service tracks order books and funding rates on 20 exchanges, independently placing both sides of the trade. Meanwhile, funds remain on the user's exchange accounts, eliminating risks associated with transferring assets to a third party.
The Real Cost of Arbitrage
The key problem is not finding a spread but distinguishing a viable opportunity from a false one. The raw price difference shown by any scanner is far from real profit. Four factors eat into it: taker fees on both legs, order book depth for a specific volume, slippage during execution, and the speed at which the spread itself decays. A full two-legged arbitrage cycle includes four market orders, and exchange fees play a decisive role here.
Speed is the second critical factor. Arbitron uses dedicated servers in cloud regions as close as possible to exchange engines. A request to Binance from Tokyo takes about 23 milliseconds, while from Singapore it is already 206 ms. During this time, the order book of a liquid futures contract manages to fully refresh, and the order arrives at a book that no longer exists. In the team's measurements, such a delay cost nearly 0.8% in slippage — several times more than a typical spread.
Backtest Instead of a Showcase
Instead of the usual screener with momentary figures, Arbitron offers a scanner based on backtesting. The platform runs the last 8 hours of recorded quotes through the same strategy used by trading cards, with a 5-minute delay. Fees are already deducted, and slippage is factored in at the worst price over the selected interval. This filters out the main illusion of arbitrage screeners — attractive percentages that are impossible to reach.
Each opportunity receives a reliability score from 0 to 100, taking into account market depth, profit margin, and the number of completed cycles. A rating below 50 is a clear red flag. The 30-day spread history shows whether the pair worked consistently or merely hit a lucky day once.
Trading Cards and Protection
The work revolves around trading cards, each linking a pair of exchanges, a coin, and two spread thresholds. The platform capitalizes on the discrepancy in either direction, not just one way like many rigidly programmed bots. Before a trade, the order book depth is checked for the entire order, and a validation window requires the spread to stay beyond the threshold for at least one second.
Special attention deserves protection against delisting — an event more dangerous than any stop-loss. When an exchange removes a contract, one leg of the trade disappears, leaving the other without a hedge. Arbitron tracks such announcements through official APIs, cross-checks full instrument lists every 5 minutes, and reacts to a symbol disappearing from the feed. In the final hours before shutdown, the spread widens 5–10 times, so the platform recommends closing positions 24–48 hours before the event.
Payment Model
The pricing structure is built not on a subscription fee for volume but on a percentage of profit. The Scanner plan at $39 per month opens up data without execution. Trader at $99 adds a dedicated server, static IP, and trading, with a 35% fee on realized profit. Prime at $299, slated for launch, reduces the fee to 30% and expands limits. Losses are carried forward to future periods — the platform takes a fee only after the trader exceeds their previous peak profitability.
This is a sensible approach: payment is charged only for real results, aligning the interests of the platform and the user. However, it is worth remembering that arbitrage is not passive income. It requires an understanding of futures trading, starting capital of at least $3000, and careful threshold configuration. For those willing to grasp the mechanics, this is a working tool that removes the routine of monitoring and execution.