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Cyclic Arbitrage in Decentralized Exchanges

Author

Listed:
  • Ye Wang
  • Yan Chen
  • Haotian Wu
  • Liyi Zhou
  • Shuiguang Deng
  • Roger Wattenhofer

Abstract

Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes) enable users to create markets for exchanging any pair of cryptocurrencies. The direct exchange rate of two tokens may not match the cross-exchange rate in the market, and such price discrepancies open up arbitrage possibilities with trading through different cryptocurrencies cyclically. In this paper, we conduct a systematic investigation on cyclic arbitrages in DEXes. We propose a theoretical framework for studying cyclic arbitrage. With our framework, we analyze the profitability conditions and optimal trading strategies of cyclic transactions. We further examine exploitable arbitrage opportunities and the market size of cyclic arbitrages with transaction-level data of Uniswap V2. We find that traders have executed 292,606 cyclic arbitrages over eleven months and exploited more than 138 million USD in revenue. However, the revenue of the most profitable unexploited opportunity is persistently higher than 1 ETH (4,000 USD), which indicates that DEX markets may not be efficient enough. By analyzing how traders implement cyclic arbitrages, we find that traders can utilize smart contracts to issue atomic transactions and the atomic implementations could mitigate users' financial loss in cyclic arbitrage from the price impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Ye Wang & Yan Chen & Haotian Wu & Liyi Zhou & Shuiguang Deng & Roger Wattenhofer, 2021. "Cyclic Arbitrage in Decentralized Exchanges," Papers 2105.02784, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2105.02784
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Haonan Xu & Alessio Brini, 2025. "Improving DeFi Accessibility through Efficient Liquidity Provisioning with Deep Reinforcement Learning," Papers 2501.07508, arXiv.org.
    2. Cartea, Álvaro & Drissi, Fayçal & Monga, Marcello, 2025. "Decentralised finance and automated market making: Execution and speculation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. Saggese, Pietro & Belmonte, Alessandro & Dimitri, Nicola & Facchini, Angelo & Böhme, Rainer, 2023. "Arbitrageurs in the Bitcoin ecosystem: Evidence from user-level trading patterns in the Mt. Gox exchange platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 251-270.
    4. Raphael Auer & Bernhard Haslhofer & Stefan Kitzler & Pietro Saggese & Friedhelm Victor, 2024. "The technology of decentralized finance (DeFi)," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 55-95, March.
    5. Lucas Mussoi Almeida & Fernanda Maria Müller & Marcelo Scherer Perlin, 2025. "Risk Forecasting Comparisons in Decentralized Finance: An Approach in Constant Product Market Makers," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 65(1), pages 395-428, January.
    6. Lioba Heimbach & Ye Wang & Roger Wattenhofer, 2021. "Behavior of Liquidity Providers in Decentralized Exchanges," Papers 2105.13822, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    7. Muck, Matthias & Schmidl, Thomas & Wolf, Julian, 2025. "Wish or reality? On the exploitability of triangular arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. Almeida, Lucas Mussoi & Perlin, Marcelo Scherer & Müller, Fernanda Maria, 2025. "Pricing efficiency in cryptocurrencies: The case of centralized and decentralized markets," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

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