Manifold Founder Recounts Earning Over $100,000 a Day in Arbitrage Profits During High Volatility

Manifold founder Jae Chung revealed in a retrospective post published August 19, 2026, that his crypto trading firm earned more than $100,000 per day (approximately 133.5 million won) from arbitrage during high-volatility periods. The firm built its early revenue by exploiting price differences between centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX). Chung, who started the business in 2021 without quantitative trading experience, tested multiple strategies including arbitrage, spread capture, basis trading, statistical arbitrage, yield farming, and deep learning before settling on its core approach. He emphasized that choosing the right market to compete in was as important as execution, noting the team deliberately avoided competing with large trading firms by finding opportunities in decentralized markets. The disclosure offers a rare look at the economics of CEX-DEX arbitrage, a strategy whose profitability scales with volatility and fragmentation across trading venues. Market participants will watch whether such arbitrage margins persist as crypto market structure consolidates and competition from institutional trading firms intensifies.