How Network Congestion (Gas Fees) Turns a Paper Arbitrage Profit into a Loss
On paper, you spot a tantalizing 2.5% price gap between Uniswap and Coinbase. You calculate a clean $250 profit on a $10,000 swap. You press send—and end up $180 in the red. What went wrong? In the high-stakes arena of crypto arbitrage, network congestion, base gas spikes, priority bidding wars, and failed transaction fees are the silent killers of profitability. In this quantitative breakdown, we model the exact physics of on-chain gas drag and how professional traders protect their margins.