DriftPack Arbitrage
Background
In the world of DeFi, opportunities are abundant — but so are complexities. From complicated yield farming setups to risky high-leverage trading, even experienced users face barriers to earning stable, on-chain returns.
Funding rate arbitrage is one of crypto’s most reliable passive yield strategies. But for retail yield farmers, it’s been largely inaccessible. Why?
Manual execution, poor inventory management, liquidation risk, high slippage, and no unified interface make it difficult for everyday users to benefit — especially when trying to manage both decentralized and centralized platforms.
Adding to that, Backpack’s massive Season 1 airdrop campaign has driven volume to new highs — but airdrop farming effectively requires both time and know-how that most users simply don’t have.
The Opportunity
By closely observing market dynamics, we identified a consistent and compelling arbitrage opportunity:
Backpack, a regulated and rapidly growing exchange founded by former FTX executives, attracts a different profile of traders, including professional CEX participants and airdrop hunters. This mix, combined with the ongoing 10-week airdrop campaign, has created a distinct funding structure.
Drift, a leading decentralized perpetual futures DEX on Solana, primarily attracts DeFi traders and quantitative hedging teams using the JLP strategy. This diverse trading base creates a unique funding rate environment, influenced by the more risk-managed strategies of these sophisticated traders.
The result? A wide funding rate spread that can be captured passively — with estimated yields reaching 20%+ APR.
And this doesn’t even include the potential upside from accumulating Backpack points and eventual airdrop exposure.
Why Drift and Backpack?
Drift Protocol
Drift is Solana’s premier decentralized perpetuals exchange, offering up to 50x leverage and built on a hybrid model combining a decentralized AMM (DAMM) with a central limit order book (DLOB). This architecture delivers deep liquidity, low slippage, and high execution speed — all on-chain. Drift is designed for advanced trading while retaining transparency and self-custody.
Vectis brings deep expertise in trading on Drift, having spent nearly a year operating a live JLP hedging strategy that actively managed funding rate dynamics, slippage optimization, and inventory rebalancing on the platform. This hands-on experience forms the foundation of our new arbitrage vault design — letting us build with confidence, precision, and deep understanding of Drift’s execution layer.
Backpack Exchange
Backpack is more than just an exchange — it’s a post-FTX vision for security and compliance. Led by FTX’s former legal chief Can Sun and built by the Coral team (creators of the Backpack wallet), Backpack secured a regulated license in Dubai, acquired FTX Europe, and offers unique features like auto-lend, subaccount risk isolation, and fiat withdrawal via USD bank wires.
In early 2025, Backpack launched its Season 1 airdrop points program, rewarding users for trading across spot, perps, and lending markets. This has brought in massive volume — with SOL perps alone exceeding $150M daily, creating an ideal environment for arbitrage.
How It Works
The Vectis vault leverages a single strategy that automatically allocates capital between Drift and Backpack. As a depositor, you simply stake USDC or SOL into the vault.
Behind the scenes, the vault opens and manages positions across both platforms — dynamically optimizing for funding rate spreads, open interest, price divergence, and volume trends.
Key assets traded include SOL, ETH, and BTC, with up to 5x leverage, adjusted in real-time through automated rebalancing logic. Withdrawals are available with a 48-hour buffer, allowing for smooth deleveraging and minimizing slippage risk.
All Backpack airdrop points generated by the strategy are passed back to vault users, and once the airdrop is live, rewards will be proportionally distributed.
Why Vectis?
At Vectis, we’ve spent the past year building and deploying advanced trading strategies on Solana — including JLP hedging vaults on Drift. We’re deeply familiar with its execution model and funding behavior, giving us a clear edge in deploying cross-platform arbitrage.
This strategy is built on Voltr, a decentralized Solana-native vault framework that ensures non-custodial fund management with full transparency. Users always maintain visibility into share price, account equity, and platform-level balances.
Additionally, we will distribute all Backpack and Drift Airdrops to our users, further enhancing the value proposition of our vault strategies.
Launch Details
The Vectis Funding Rate Arbitrage Vault is now live.
Deposits accepted in USDC
Leverage: Up to 5x, fully automated
Yield target: 20%+ APR from funding rate spreads
Airdrops: 100% of Backpack and Drift points go to vault users
Fees: 0% on deposit/withdraw, transparent 2/20 fee structure
Withdrawals: Processed within 48 hours to allow safe rebalancing
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