![](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/sjOfiKNDTklAfD-Xxm1l2-f2XPU=/1200x628/center/middle/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/PCOR4XGBAZEYDJKMGR2V7XUMHA.jpg)
A futures spread trade is an arbitrage technique where a trader takes two positions on a commodity to capitalize on a discrepancy in price. So a trader buys one futures contract and sells another with a different expiry date. Instead of trading the price of the underlying asset – in this case, bitcoin or another cryptocurrency – based on the investor’s view of the future direction of the market, traders bet on the price difference between the two contracts.