Here, you need to define the concept of hedging. Hedging refers to taking the futures market as the place to transfer the price risk, so as to reduce the risk brought by the price fluctuation in the spot market, and trading in the futures market and the spot market in the opposite direction to avoid the risk. If the futures are closed directly with the spot, it is not hedging.

There are three kinds of arbitrage. You are talking about intertemporal arbitrage. Arbitrage is to use the price difference of futures in different months to obtain profits. Under certain circumstances, the same kind of futures keeps a relatively stable price difference in different months. When the spread widens, there will be arbitrage opportunities, one selling and one buying. When the price difference returns to its original level, it will be profitable.