A practical workflow for turning scanner rows into verified, size-aware trades instead of chasing headline percentages.
TL;DR: A scanner finds price and funding differences; it does not guarantee profit. Keep only markets you can trade, check deposit/withdrawal (D/W) and both order books, then subtract fees, slippage, transfer, and funding from the gross %.
A free scanner continuously compares prices and funding rates across exchanges. It shrinks thousands of markets to a short list of candidates worth checking by hand. It is a discovery tool (“where should I look?”), not a “guaranteed profit” button.
A row can change while you open the exchange. Its percentage may omit your fee tier, slippage, withdrawal cost, or funding settlement time. The correct sequence is always: find → verify → calculate → only then execute.
The scanner answers “where should I look?” A trade decision exists only after you check: does liquidity cover your size, and is there still profit after every cost?
Start with your constraints, not the largest spread. Keep only exchanges where KYC is done, the required market is open, and capital is already there. An opportunity between venues you cannot use is useless.
Open accounts early and complete KYC. Links go to signup / invite pages. This is not an endorsement of any venue — verify availability in your country.
Then filter trade types to what you already know how to execute:
Separate spot-to-spot, futures-to-futures, and funding because their costs and execution differ.
Liquidity must cover your size on both legs, not merely the best quoted order.
Remove values too small after fees and suspiciously huge values on illiquid tokens.
In a fast market, even a row aged 10–20 seconds may describe a price that no longer exists.
For a first pass, use a moderate minimum: for example, 1% spread, $10,000 volume, and only 3–5 familiar venues. Narrow the list from there instead of widening it.
First identify direction: where to buy lower and where to sell higher. Then verify the exact symbol and contract type. Matching tickers do not always mean the same asset, and a perpetual future is not a spot token.
After prices, inspect update time, available size, fees, and D/W status. Do not jump straight to the large percentage: read the row as a trade route, not an advertisement.
$70 is not net profit yet. If the row does not show an average fill for $2,000, it may be using best quotes available for only the first $20.
Positive funding usually means longs pay shorts; negative funding means shorts pay longs. But venues can use different intervals and settlement times. Compare expected payments over the same period, not just the displayed numbers.
A market-neutral setup opens equal-sized opposite positions. The rate difference must cover entry and exit fees, slippage, and any change in basis between the contracts.
Continue with spot, futures, and funding bundles · funding on Binance, Bybit, and OKX
D/W = Deposit / Withdrawal: whether you can move the coin in and out. In spot-to-spot arb you need: withdraw from the buy venue and deposit on the sell venue on the same network (e.g. both TRC20 or both ERC20). An “open” badge is not enough: match network, contract address, minimum, withdrawal fee, and confirmations.
A 4% spread on $500 gives $20 gross profit. If ERC20 is the only shared open network and withdrawal costs $18, only $2 remains before trading fees. If deposits are closed, the trade is impossible.
The best quote shows only the top level. For the buy, sum asks until the full position is covered; for the sell, sum bids. Those volume-weighted fill prices reveal the real spread after slippage.
Do not scale profit linearly. If $250 earns $7, that does not mean $2,500 earns $70: the larger order reaches deeper price levels.
For a spot trade, subtract buy fee, sell fee, slippage on both legs, withdrawal, and any conversion. For futures, add funding, closing fees, and basis risk. Keep a buffer for price movement during execution.
If even one material cost is unknown, the result is unknown too. Reduce size, find the number, or skip the trade.
An alert for “any spread above 1%” quickly becomes constant noise. A notification should mirror your trading plan: specific venues, market type, minimum executable size, minimum net profit, and acceptable data age.
Create separate alerts for spreads and funding. Add time-to-settlement for funding and open D/W for spot. After a signal, repeat the order-book check because the notification describes detection time, not a guaranteed fill.
If you ignore most notifications, the filter is too broad. A good alert is rare, understandable, and immediately leads to a short verification checklist.
Open the scanner and first select the venues and trade type available to you. Set minimum size and a reasonable spread range. Sort the results, but do not assume the first row is automatically the best.
Open a row and confirm buy/sell direction, symbol, market, and data freshness.
For spot, verify a shared open D/W route, network, cost, and confirmation time.
Inspect both order books and calculate average fills for your intended size.
Subtract all fees, slippage, transfer costs, and funding; include a safety buffer.
Open the venues, recheck prices, execute both legs according to plan, and log the actual result.
Use the first trade to validate the process, not maximize profit. Compare the scanner estimate with actual fills and adjust your filters.
Open the free VoltArb scanner →A useful scanner saves time but does not replace the trader’s work. Filters find a suitable market; D/W confirms the route; VWAP across both books reveals executable prices; and a complete cost calculation turns gross spread into honest expected profit.
Treat every row as a hypothesis. Test it at your size, execute only with an adequate buffer, and confidently skip the opportunity when the numbers do not hold.
VoltArb calculates actual net profit using order book depth, slippage, fees, and funding rates.
20+ exchanges · 5 arbitrage types · Telegram alerts · Fair price screener · Funding scanner · Real-time Tracker
VoltArb is a free real-time crypto arbitrage scanner monitoring 20+ exchanges — with real profit calculations, not just spreads.