With crypto these days alpha is still very easy since it's a small backwater. Microstructure is all complete bullshit (and has been as long as these markets existed), and leverage is basically unlimited. A huge sell order is more likely to indicate buying than selling, for example. At least liquidation cascades don't literally hit 0 like they have in the past, which is an improvement.
There are also all sorts of unpublished arrangements like colocating servers for privileged partners; you will _never_ trade into an order they don't want you to when you have 5ms latency and they have microseconds.
On the one hand, people have never really understood just how dirty it is. On the other, most of that is now just the long flat line on the chart...
When I got into crypto back in 2013 I resolved myself to long-term holds with self-custody(before HODL was even a meme) precisely because I had seen how bad things got in pink sheet trading a few years prior and had the losses to prove it - I already had no faith in regulated markets, therefore I knew it was only going to be more blatant in crypto.
But if I held over the long term and carefully looked for the macro picture, I would sidestep manipulation, because it's ultimately the product of people sitting in front of a whiteboard trying to make their play happen within the span of the next business quarter, whereas my bet is on crypto as an asset class.
The plan has worked reasonably well; it's had huge ups and equally huge downs, so I have not quite "won" yet, but I have definitely not lost.
There are also all sorts of unpublished arrangements like colocating servers for privileged partners; you will _never_ trade into an order they don't want you to when you have 5ms latency and they have microseconds.
On the one hand, people have never really understood just how dirty it is. On the other, most of that is now just the long flat line on the chart...