# Online Convex Optimization with Unconstrained Domains and Losses

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02622 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.02622/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 7 Mar 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Parameter-Agnostic Optimization under Relaxed Smoothness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.03252/) (2023)
- [PDE-Based Optimal Strategy for Unconstrained Online Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07877/) (2022)
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- [Dealing with unbounded gradients in stochastic saddle-point optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13903/) (2024)
- [SVRG Meets AdaGrad: Painless Variance Reduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09645/) (2021)
- [Tuning-Free Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07793/) (2024)
- [How Free is Parameter-Free Stochastic Optimization?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03126/) (2024)
- [Universal Online Convex Optimization with 1 Projection per Round](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19705/) (2024)
- [On the Initialization for Convex-Concave Min-max Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00284/) (2021)
- [Universal Online Convex Optimization Meets Second-order Bounds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03681/) (2021)
- [Optimistic Optimisation of Composite Objective with Exponentiated Update](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.04065/) (2022)
- [Decentralized Parameter-Free Online Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15644/) (2025)
- [Decentralized Parameter-Free Online Learning with Compressed Gossip](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.27831/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose an online convex optimization algorithm (RescaledExp) that achieves optimal regret in the unconstrained setting without prior knowledge of any bounds on the loss functions. We prove a lower bound showing an exponential separation between the regret of existing algorithms that require a known bound on the loss functions and any algorithm that does not require such knowledge. RescaledExp matches this lower bound asymptotically in the number of iterations. RescaledExp is naturally hyperparameter-free and we demonstrate empirically that it matches prior optimization algorithms that require hyperparameter optimization.
