Case Study: Lessons Learned from 9 Crypto Trading

In 2021, James, I, and a small team decided to set up a crypto trading venture.

We faced several problems, but knowing almost nothing about crypto was the most significant.

We sensed that the fractured, developing nature of the crypto market would likely be a good place to seek out inefficiencies, but beyond that, we were winging it.

That turned out to be very true – inefficiencies abounded in crypto at the time. We quickly found ourselves a niche doing futures basis arbitrage. But when that started to dry up, there was no shortage of other opportunities to get after.

We traded various edges, from on-chain latency arbitrage to leveraged yield farming.

1. On-chain Latency Arbitrage
   We took advantage of delays between blockchain state updates and exchange price reactions. If you saw something happen on-chain before the market priced it in, there was an edge.
2. Leveraged Yield Farming

We borrowed assets to amplify returns from yield farming protocols. The edge came from stacking incentives, rewards, fees, and token emissions, while managing liquidation risk.
But we also learned a bunch of meta-lessons about trading generally, including how to approach a market you know very little about, and the importance of trying to make money every day and what this means for prioritising your work.

Key Lessons We Learned

In the video, we talk through some of the biggest lessons that shaped our approach to crypto trading:

• How simple trades like basis and funding arbitrage helped us build early momentum
• What DeFi Summer taught us about chasing yield and managing risk
• Why some of our best trades didn’t look smart on the surface
• How understanding market structure often beat trying to predict sentiment
• The importance of acting fast, learning by doing, and making sense of wins after the fact

These lessons came from real trades and they’ve stuck with us since. Watch the video to hear the full story.

Watch the Video

Final Thoughts

Looking back, this chapter taught us more than just how to trade, it shaped how we think about edge, risk, and speed of execution. The crypto market moved fast, and we had to move with it. If you’re figuring out your own approach, we hope this episode gives you something useful to build on.