Strategies Guide
Buy low on one exchange, sell high on another. The simplest arbitrage strategy — and the hardest to execute manually.
Updated 2026-10-05 · 9 min read
Cross-exchange arbitrage is the simplest form of crypto arbitrage: you buy a token where it is cheap and sell it where it is expensive — at the same time, on two different exchanges. When Bitcoin trades at $97,200 on Exchange A and $97,590 on Exchange B, that $390 gap is a cross-exchange spread waiting to be captured.
It sounds like free money, and in theory it is close to risk-free. In practice, the profit survives only if you are faster than the gap and cheaper than the costs. This guide covers exactly how it works, what it really costs, and how traders find these spreads with a crypto arbitrage scanner.
Every exchange is its own island of supply and demand. Prices diverge because order books are separate, liquidity differs, fiat on-ramps vary by region, and news travels at different speeds. A scanner watches the same trading pair — say BTC/USDT — on many exchanges simultaneously and flags the moment the highest bid on one exchange exceeds the lowest ask on another.
Beginners consistently underestimate costs. Here is honest math on a typical retail setup with 0.1% maker/taker fees per exchange:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Buy 1 BTC on Exchange A | $97,200.00 |
| Sell 1 BTC on Exchange B | $97,590.00 |
| Gross spread | +$390.00 (0.40%) |
| Trading fee, Exchange A (0.1%) | −$97.20 |
| Trading fee, Exchange B (0.1%) | −$97.59 |
| BTC withdrawal + network fee | −$8.00 |
| Net profit | +$187.21 |
The 0.3% rule of thumb
With standard retail fees, spreads below ~0.3% are rarely worth chasing — costs eat them. Profitable retail spreads usually start around 0.4–1.0% and vanish within seconds to minutes.
Buy on the cheap exchange, withdraw the coins, deposit to the expensive exchange, sell. Simple — but slow. Bitcoin transfers can take 10–60 minutes, and the spread often closes while your coins are in transit. You arrive to find the gap gone and you are now just holding BTC.
Keep balances on both exchanges. The moment a spread appears, buy on A and sell on B at the same time — no transfer wait. Afterwards, rebalance. This is how serious arbitrageurs operate, but it requires capital sitting on multiple exchanges and careful inventory management.
Risk warning
Arbitrage is lower-risk than directional trading, not risk-free. Never deploy capital you cannot afford to have locked on an exchange, and always paper-trade a strategy first.
Manual checking cannot compete — spreads live for seconds. Traders use scanners that poll order books across exchanges continuously. Crypto Arbitrage Scanner, for example, watches 16 exchanges in real time, ranks opportunities by net spread, and lets you rehearse execution with a paper trading bot before committing real funds. See also our guide to crypto arbitrage opportunities and the glossary if any term here is new.
Yes. Buying and selling the same asset on different exchanges is legal in most jurisdictions. You are still responsible for taxes on the profits and for each exchange's terms of service.
You can practice with a paper trading bot for free. For live sequential arbitrage, many start with $500–$2,000; pre-funded simultaneous execution needs more since capital sits on several exchanges at once.
Retail spreads often last seconds to a few minutes. Pre-funded accounts and one-click execution (or a scanner with alerts) are the realistic minimum; high-frequency firms compete in milliseconds.
Crypto Arbitrage Scanner detects cross-exchange spreads in real time across 16 exchanges — and the paper trading bot lets you practice risk-free.
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