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London, United Kingdom, Dec 01, 2025. If you spend time in crypto trading circles, one question eventually comes up, and that’s how is it that private clients and family offices routinely pull 3 to 10% spreads from arbitrage, while retail traders on Coinbase or Binance fight over scraps worth less than 1%?
For Alan Katz, Senior Partner at BridgemontEquity.com , the answer has nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with structure. High net worth clients do not play the same game. They do not trade on the same platforms. And they are not limited by the same rules.
“People assume everyone sees the same prices and the same opportunities,” Katz says. “But the truth is, private clients are not accessing the same market the public sees. They are accessing the market underneath it.”
The First Advantage: Off-Exchange Execution
Retail trades almost always happen inside public centralized exchanges. Private clients often never touch them. They trade directly through liquidity networks, OTC desks, and border crossing settlement channels where spreads are wider and competition is thinner.
A retail trader might see Bitcoin priced at 92,000 CAD on Coinbase and 91,400 CAD on Kraken, a difference of less than 1%. Meanwhile, a private desk might see Bitcoin at 90,200 CAD through a regional broker in Turkey and 93,700 CAD through a prime settlement desk in Singapore, a 3.8% gap.
The Second Advantage: Faster Capital Movement
Arbitrage is not just about spotting a price difference. It is about moving quick enough to capture it. Private clients do not wire money from the bank to exchange and wait a day. They use pre-funded channels, instant liquidity lines, pooled accounts, and blockchain settlement that clears in minutes.
A spread that lasts ten minutes is worthless to someone waiting for funds to arrive. To a private desk, it's a trade.
The Third Advantage: Regulatory Asymmetry
Crypto is not priced equally across borders because crypto is not regulated equally across borders. Some regions restrict withdrawals. Some restrict deposits. Some restrict stablecoins. Each restriction widens the price gap.
Private clients exploit this by arbitraging between countries with free capital flow and those with capital throttling. Retail traders cannot access those markets, but private clients can.
The Fourth Advantage: Block Size
Most retail traders arbitrage a few thousand dollars at a time. Private clients arbitrage millions. A 3% spread on $60,000 is $1,800 good, but not incredible. A 3% spread on $8 million is $240,000 in one execution.
That scale alone changes what is worthwhile.
The Fifth Advantage: Market Intelligence
Private clients do not rely on price alerts or Telegram channels. They get direct order flow data, political signals, offshore liquidity reports, and banking movement insight before retail ever sees it.
They know where liquidity will break before it breaks. They know where spreads will widen before they widen.
Katz points out that the real divide is not wealth,but it is access. The system is built so that those with capital, infrastructure, and multi-jurisdictional banking can act faster and operate in markets retail traders simply cannot touch.
“Retail plays inside the box,” Katz says. “Private clients trade by stepping outside of it. That difference is not going away, it is widening.”
For Bridgemont Equity and its private clients, the opportunity is not theoretical. It is structural. And it is ongoing every single day.
Disclaimer: This article is purely informational and doesn't offer trading or financial advice. Its content is not intended to be investment advice. We do not guarantee the validity of the information, especially when it pertains to third-party references or hyperlinks.
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