BTC-E has more volatility, but at lower EMA values. For example if you were to look at it in terms of 15 to 30 minute frequencies you'll see it's a bit more volatile short term. Gox is more volatile long term, which is why 1 hour + frequencies tend to yield better payoffs.

Sent you the requested info.

Additionally, please remember that the buy the bot tried to do around 12:28 was because I personally initiated a buy shortly after 12 to try and mitigate my losses on BTCE. The buy should have initiated at between 12:00 and 12:01.

BTC E Bot didn't buy, it definitely should have.
12:00   89.185   88.406   88.150   0.290% (This is over 0.25, and I should have gotten a buy order triggered, but instead I got an imminent notification)
11:00   88.987   88.233   88.047   0.211% (This is over zero, I should have gotten an imminent notification.)
10:00   88.544   88.066   87.953   0.128% (This is over zero, I should have gotten an imminent notification.)
9:00   88.601   87.959   87.894   0.075% (This is over zero, I should have gotten an imminent notification.)

My settings:
Buy Threshold 1: 0
Buy Threshold 2: 0.25

I should have gotten a "Buy is imminent" email at 9:00 since 0.075 is higher than 0.
I should have gotten a "Buy order has been triggered" email at 12:00 since 0.29% is higher than 0.25%

Instead, I got the following:
EMA diff is at 0.29% (1 BTC = 89.185 USD) at btce.
A buy order is imminent!

In this exact same situation this morning with Mt Gox the bot initiated a buy imminent and buy trigger at the correct times using the exact same settings under similar circumstances. BTCE did not.

So at least for me, the logic makes complete sense as to what happened for me.

At 1:01 AM I got this email:

EMA diff is at 0.011% (1 BTC = 95.42 USD) at mtgox.

A buy order is imminent!

The corresponding number on the Bot chart was:
1:00   95.420   94.617   94.607   0.011%

Then, I got this email at 6:01 AM:
EMA diff is at 0.291% (1 BTC = 95.89997 USD) at mtgox.

A buy order was triggered.

The corresponding number on the Bot chart was:
6:00   95.900   95.264   94.988   0.291%

When I check MtGox, my buy order was sent at the correct time as well:
2013/07/28 06:00:35

It bought at the correct time for me, which is 6:00 AM.

Huh, I guess this must be the one time where everyone else had issues and I didn't.

After much discourse with you guys I eventually just threw in my hat and went with the 0, 0.25 settings. And this morning, I see that I got an email saying it was imminent shortly after the crossover, and then I didn't get a trigger email until the second threshold had been met, and it was able to process my transaction without issue.

Out of curiosity, could this issue possibly be based on transaction size?

All of my transactions have been under 1000 USD/10 BTC, are you guys running with a much bigger bankroll?

I've been thinking along the same lines.

The problem with going with "trends" in one hour increments owes to how volatile the BTC market is. Unlike the stock market, where crashes are protracted over days and weeks, crashes on MtGox and BTCE are protracted over minutes and hours.

Those 1 to 2 hours could make all the difference in a crash situation, and the way the bot currently works with thresholds could lead to you losing a lot of money if say the first threshold for a sell is reached when BTC drops from say 90 to 80, its entirely possible that price to crash all the way down to 60 in that next hour or two. So you're looking at a situation where if you had say 10 BTC and a crossover occurred, you could have sold at say 85 when the crash was happening, instead of the 65 that will happen because the bot hasn't hit its thresholds yet.

That's why I proposed the earlier feature that would allow a user to only buy and sell AT crossovers, or at least allow the mix of the two. For example I could see myself wanting to use thresholds in all my buy situations but only wanting to use strictly crossovers in all of my sell situations.

Nevermind, I'm an idiot, 0 is technically greater than any negative number.

I just changed the sell thresholds to -0.01 and -0.02 and it triggered a sell almost immediately.

Could you explain why this hasn't sold anything yet?




This seems pretty straightforward to me.

Before the 20:00 mark the first threshold, 0, would have been met (That's when the crossover occurred).
Exactly at the 20:00 mark, the second threshold would trigger because -0.01 is < -0.029

I can maybe imagine some lag and the sell not going off until 21:00, but it still hasn't, what the heck?

Definitely. I'm still in the experimentation stage. I'm not a big enough player to where I care that much if lose some BTC or USD in the process of trying to figure out what works the best.

I am however considering doing something like, split half of my account into Bot funds and split half my account into manual buy/sell funds and see where I end up after 1 month of use.

lol, you're getting me wrong, I don't have that. If I did have that I probably wouldn't be discussing this. I too, am a guppy.

MtGox
Time Period: 2 Hours
Daily Chart
Moving Averages
Exponential 11
Exponential 34

First Buy - January 4th, 10,000 USD @ 13.50

Last Sell - July 18th 324,752 USD @ 97

The four biggest gains are here:

Buy March 16th 46.9
Sell March 23rd 66
45,790

Buy March 24th 68
Sell April 10th 200
134,677

Buy April 17th 85
Sell April 26th 135
213,899

Buy July 8th 77
Sell July 18th 97
324,752

This would have been, buy all sell all at exactly the crossovers from January 1st all the way up until July 18th if you had invested 10k on the first Buy signal on January 4th. Yes, I'm sure this could probably be tweaked but these were my results. But since the software is limited to 1 hour max and doesn't allow you to trade at exactly the crossovers I wont be able to try these specific settings.

It's funny, I wish I could show you a specialized EMA at 2 hour frequency from January 1st to the most recent sell signal. Looking at something like 10k on January 1st to 340k at the most recent sell signal.

Not a problem! I consider myself a power user, so I'm always tweaking settings and try to notice when programs might be improved by adding things here and there for ease of usability and what not.

I know that with the nature of this program its not in all of our best interests to make this super easy to use, but for your existing customers I do see this as definitely being a decent usability upgrade for those that would rather not bother with thresholds and are just looking for a bit that will buy and sell at the crossovers, but also gives advanced users the tools to further personalize their experience with the software.

Finally after much tweaking I've been able to see it execute a trade without help using the 0/# setting.

These are my current options
Hourly
Buy 1: 0, Buy 2: 0.01
Sell 1: 0, Sell 2: -0.01

This acts just as I thought it would and sends a message like, "Sell Order Imminent" on the crossover itself (within 1 hour of the crossover), followed 1 hour later with "Sell Order Trigger" after the first notification was sent.

I would like if there was a noob friendly setting so you could just have two checkboxes that would be something like

Buy All Exactly At Crossover [checkbox] (Hover Tooltip - Warning! Choosing this option could possibly lead to a buy that is not based on a trend! This will also override any thresholds set. Do you still want to use this setting?)
Sell All Exactly At Crossover [checkbox] (Hover Tooltip - Warning! Choosing this option could possibly lead to a sell that is not based on a trend! This will also override any thresholds set. Do you still want to use this setting?)

What is the possibility of adding 2 hour, 6 hour, 12 hour and 1 Day intervals?

So, using this logic, when the EMA crossover occurs, the bot will automatically send an email stating "a buy order is imminent" and then 1 hour passes, if the next number it sees in the chart is greater than or equal to your second threshold then it will trigger the buy (or sell)?

Would this be true for Sells as well?

Also, I'll just add this here. I sent it in email form as well.

Feature Request - Multi Configuration

• As a user, I would like the ability to set different Trade Frequencies, Buy and Sell thresholds per exchange.

Acceptance Criteria

• MtGox and BTC-E can both have their own unique Trading Frequency.
• MtGox and BTC-E can both have their own unique Buy and Sell Thresholds.
• In the Butter Bot Configuration options page I can view both the MtGox and BTC-E charts.

My last post I promise.

According to the thresholds that you setup on the bot, if you're running Hourly and you have two thresholds, the Buy or Sell will ALWAYS happen 2 hours AFTER the hour the crossover occurs?

Additionally, the bot DID eventually sell my BTC sometime after the crossover. It just didn't quite happen as soon as I would like. I know I'm getting close to the PeurtoLibre area of expecting something different out of the bot, this is just me slowly figuring it out.

17:00   89.821   91.208   91.557   -0.382% (Threshold 2 - -0.23) BOT SELLS
16:00   90.200   91.517   91.731   -0.234% (Threshold 1 - -0.17)
15:00   90.403   91.809   91.884   -0.081%

According to my Gox history, it sold here:

2013/07/20 17:00:22