A Trader’s Path from Crypto Speculation to Triangular Arbitrage
Summary
The author recounts moving from early cryptocurrency trading and leveraged futures to writing automated strategies, including moving-average and grid approaches. The account describes losses and operational setbacks as well as learning to use trading APIs and strategy tools. It is personal experience rather than a systematic evaluation: no performance record or controlled comparison is provided, and the author describes earlier strategies as unsuccessful.
The technical section introduces triangular arbitrage as a search for a currency conversion cycle whose exchange rates multiply to more than one before costs. It models currencies as graph nodes and conversion rates as directed edges, then discusses detecting profitable cycles with a graph algorithm. A sample implementation is explicitly unfinished and unverified; it also simplifies fees and execution, so its example does not show that an opportunity could be captured live. The article’s main research value is the graph formulation and the reminder that a theoretical rate discrepancy must survive trading costs and execution constraints.
Key ideas
- The author’s trading history includes speculative spot trading, leveraged futures, and later automated strategies.
- Moving-average and grid bots are described as learning exercises, without evidence of profitable results.
- Triangular arbitrage can be represented as a cycle through currencies connected by conversion rates.
- A cycle is theoretically profitable when its compounded exchange rate exceeds one before costs.
- The proposed implementation is unfinished, unverified, and does not establish executable net profits.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.