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London, United Kingdom, Dec 01, 2025, There is a persistent misconception in the crypto market that arbitrage opportunities no longer exist, or if they do, they are too small to matter. Most retail traders experience this reality firsthand. They see prices converge tightly across major exchanges, and the spreads they find often amount to 10th of a %. But this is not the full picture. It is merely the visible one.
Private Clients Operate in a Different Market Layer
According to Adam Ball, Digital Strategy Lead at 21VC.io, the real arbitrage gains in today’s market are not only still available but actively being captured. They are simply not being captured by retail traders.
Ball explains that high net worth private clients and institutional investors are accessing opportunities of 3% or higher per trade on a regular basis. These are the same markets, the same assets, operating in the same time frame. Yet the outcome is completely different.
“Most traders believe that everyone sees the same prices,” Ball says. “But private clients are trading in a deeper market. They have access to liquidity and infrastructure that retail investors never touch.”
What Retail Sees vs What Private Clients See
The divergence begins with where trades take place. Retail activity is almost entirely constrained to a small number of centralized exchanges. Those platforms are regulated, standardized, and tightly connected, which compresses visible spreads.
Meanwhile, private clients operate through OTC networks, regional brokers, cross border liquidity channels, and institutional settlement desks that are not exposed to the public market.
A retail trader may see a half % price gap between Coinbase and Kraken. A private desk might see Bitcoin trading at a discount in one jurisdiction and a premium in another, creating a multi percent spread before the public market has even caught up.
Capital Mobility Creates a Second Advantage
Settlement speed is another factor that widens the divide. Retail traders are limited by slow bank transfers, withdrawal queues, and compliance delays.
Private clients use pre funded accounts, rapid settlement rails, and custody networks that clear capital in minutes instead of days. A trade that would vanish before retail funds arrive is fully executed by the time a family office has finished moving capital.
Regulation Drives Price Inefficiency
Crypto does not trade on equal terms across the world. Regional laws, capital controls, and exchange restrictions push prices out of sync. These legal and structural forces create pockets of inefficiency that show up as price spreads.
Private clients have the freedom to arbitrage across those borders. Retail traders, by design, do not.
Even when retail traders do find small spreads, they often trade in small size. A few thousand dollars here, maybe a little more. The outcome is modest.
But a private desk moving several million dollars through the same opportunity turns a minor gap into a meaningful return. A 3% spread might be pocket change at retail scale but becomes real performance when executed with institutional capital.
Arbitrage Still Exists Just Not Where Retail Looks
None of this is theoretical. It plays out daily in the crypto market. The inefficiencies are there, and they are being exploited, just not by traders limited to public platforms and slow-moving settlement systems.
Ball puts it plainly“The gap between retail and private traders is not an accident. It is built into the system. The more access you have, the more opportunities you can reach. Markets reward that.”
A Structural, Not Skill-Based Divide
For 21VC, the goal is not to eliminate this divide, but to operate within it effectively. The firm works with clients who understand that a global, fragmented market is not a barrier. It is a landscape of possibility.
In a market that never sleeps, the advantage belongs to those who are not confined to one platform, one channel, or one region. That is where the real percentages live and where private capital continues to find them.
Disclaimer: This article is purely informational and doesn't offer trading or financial advice. Its content is not intended to be investment advice. We do not guarantee the validity of the information, especially when it pertains to third-party references or hyperlinks.
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