I know centralized exchanges aren't favorable choices but compared to other ones, I prefer to use Binance.
So, Skale Network (SKL) become an interesting coin for me recently. I usually bet on futures when I want 2x or higher leverage. I was looking at charts and SKL price on Binance Spot trading was 0.069 while the price of exact coin on USD-M futures was 0.06 USDT. Usually, prices are almost identical when I look at both chart but this time it wasn't different. I talk the situation that happened 2 days ago. Date: 2023-02-10 19:00 UTC. The price didn't increase during that day on Futures.
Anyone knows what's the reason behind it? I'm not too much experienced in trading. Why was there a 15% difference in prices on the same exchange between spot and futures?
Spot and futures market are different from each other. Both have their own set of traders placing orders.
So it's quite possible that both the markets have different prices
And another question:
At the same time, coinbase had way better rates than Binance. Is it legal to buy tons of coins on Binance, withdraw, deposit on Coinbase and immediately sell the coins, then buy USDT and withdraw on Binance again?
That is what called as Arbitraging. While it is possible to do it with spot trading, it cannot be done with futures trading.
Earlier people used to get a lot of arbitraging opportunities but these days the opportunities are very low.
Even if you find such an opportunity, the moment you buy and withdraw from one site and deposit on other site the price will become identical again.
The time gap between buying and then depositing makes it enough for other traders to match the current price.