Prateek Jain

Strategy Playbook

Cross-Exchange Divergence

Pending Backtest

Compares prices of the same asset across Coinbase and Binance, trading convergence of price dislocations.

Deep Dive
The Cross-Exchange Divergence strategy exploits temporary price differences for the same asset across different exchanges — specifically between Coinbase and Binance. Price dislocations arise from regional demand differences (US vs global), liquidity variations, and temporary order flow imbalances. A >1% price gap between the two exchanges for the same token represents an arbitrage-adjacent opportunity. Unlike pure arbitrage (which requires simultaneous buys and sells on both exchanges), this strategy trades convergence on a single exchange — buying the cheaper side and waiting for the gap to close. This is simpler to execute but carries directional risk. The strategy has not been backtested because it requires simultaneous real-time price feeds from both exchanges at sub-minute granularity — data that isn't available in the historical dataset, which only covers hourly Binance candles. Key considerations for implementation: exchange-specific slippage and fee differences, withdrawal delays between exchanges (which affect the speed of convergence), and regulatory/access differences between Coinbase (US-regulated) and Binance (global).
Parameters
Exchanges:Coinbase vs Binance
Signal:Price dislocation > 1%
Direction:Convergence trade
Required External Data

Dual-exchange real-time price feeds — simultaneous Coinbase and Binance ticker streams for the same pairs.

Backtested on hourly OHLCV data across 65+ symbols from Jan 2020 to Mar 2025 — $10,000 initial balance — 0.1% commission — 0.05% slippage

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