Toward a Taxonomy of Cryptocurrency Arbitrage Strategies

Abstract

This paper proposes an extensible taxonomy for profiling cryptocurrency arbitrage strategies across on-chain and offchain environments. Organized around ten analytical dimensions, the framework supports structured classification and comparison of arbitrage mechanisms with respect to execution setting, underlying drivers, capital requirements, temporal characteristics, risk exposure, and contextual overlays. Two representative cases, Cross-Rollup Arbitrage and Cash-and-Carry Arbitrage, illustrate its use in comparing structurally different strategies within a common schema. By offering a shared vocabulary across blockchain and financial perspectives, the taxonomy helps reduce conceptual fragmentation and supports more systematic analysis of cryptocurrency arbitrage strategies.