What is Cash-and-Carry Arbitrage?
Cash-and-carry arbitrage is a market-neutral strategy that profits from the basis between spot and futures prices. The trader buys the asset in the spot market, called cash, and simultaneously sells a futures contract, then carries the position until futures expiration when prices converge.
How Cash-and-Carry Works
When futures trade at a premium to spot in contango, there is an arbitrage opportunity. You buy the asset at spot price, sell the futures at the higher futures price, and hold until expiration. At expiration, the futures price equals spot, and you deliver the asset to close the futures.
Example: If BTC spot is $50,000 and the 3-month future is $52,000 representing 4% premium, you buy spot and short futures. In 3 months, prices converge and you capture approximately 4% or 16% annualized.
Carrying Costs
The strategy's profitability depends on carrying costs. These include capital opportunity cost representing the return you could earn elsewhere, storage and custody costs which are minimal for crypto, and borrowing costs if using leverage.
Cash-and-Carry in Crypto
Crypto markets frequently exhibit contango during bull markets, with futures premiums that can reach 10-20% annualized or more. This creates attractive cash-and-carry opportunities.
Perpetual Alternative
A variant uses perpetual futures instead of expiring contracts. Rather than waiting for expiration convergence, the trader collects funding payments from the short perpetual position.
Risks
While considered low-risk, cash-and-carry has potential issues. Basis risk means if you need to exit before expiration, the basis may have moved against you.