Isn’t AVAX transferable between blockchains and Binance? If so, this isn’t “stat arb”, it’s just regular arbitrage. When the instruments are fungible, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a statistical relationship; your profit is guaranteed once you complete the trade, regardless of how the prices move later.
The Royal Dutch/Shell case is different because the two stocks were not actually fungible, so the trade would only have been profitable if the two prices eventually converged.
PS I enjoyed the article and it’s clear you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this space. I just can’t resist chiming in when it comes to well-established terminology.