The establishment of modobot.com marks a milestone in a project I started in April, and sort of ballooned. I became interested in the idea of building a Bitcoin trading bot. Since in my daily life I work with PHP and web based technology, it was natural for me to utilize that platform to quickly build a proof of concept. Public Code.At that point I called it 'Lazy Bot', because it is really the polar opposite of a high frequency trading bot.

While doing research, I found that there are some very good engineers building trading bots, and that although the trading logic is not magic, the configuration is necessarily complex. I personally found many of the applications to be unapproachable, mostly because I didn't understand the basics. I have since learned, but I wanted a way to introduce people to the world of digital currencies and automated trading in a manner that does not require any technical expertise other than the ability to open a browser.

I would also like to thank the following bitcointalk.org members that volunteered for alpha-testing: honolululu, td services, Elwar, btc-mike, Stephan224, and marlin1331. I appreciate the help and the direction.

Inasmuch as this is an announcement, I am also requesting public comment and questions.

Site looks mostly fine to me, although I personally dislike dark backgrounds. Dark backgrounds tend to swallow white text, and it is harder to focus. I would recommending increasing the font thickness to alleviate that. As ndsbd mentioned, the font is a little small.

Also, I think Arial font is sort of the opposite of what I think you are probably trying to convey to your audience, which I presume is modern, hip, and fresh. Arial font is the default font for web pages, so using another font will aid in the idea of 'fresh', and 'new'. The current website I am building now uses Verdana, but that is just a preference. You do have a nice mix of fonts though, and that is visually appealing.

And not that anyone other than a developer would care, I enjoyed the fact that your source code is readable.

Don't forget https in the midst of your security and privacy. I wouldn't expect to have it enabled for demo purposes though.

I'm not sure if this is an accident, or someone got their css crossed up, but I would have a hard time making a case for this being an intentional decision, namely because most elements are reasonably clean visually speaking. The hover effect is neat, but it serves no purpose other than it is neat. The button, the hover text, and the tooltip all say the exact same thing.


As a consumer, I don't want to be distracted from the merchandise by things that seem out of place.. As a developer, I would wonder how you got that effect, would dig into the source code, and immediately be looking for different ways to optimize the code. I would have completely forgotten about shopping.

Under the info tab at the top, you have a typo. 'Infos' is not a word, it should just be "Info". If this were my website, I would expand the Info pop-over and include the information you have at the bottom of the page.

This will allow you to further declutter the main page. I am also not sure of the need for the logo at the bottom of the page. That is another opportunity to declutter.

I am hoping to move to an open beta within the month. The alpha-testing group has not had too many issues so far. I have not even set up a static page anywhere for the site.

I have a web-based platform that is in closed-alpha that might do what you want. Basically you can set the bot to buy only, and set whatever baseline that you want, as well as set the transaction size. Is that sort of what you are talking about?

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I have been working on exactly that; a simple bot, with a simple interface, that can run on any exchange, with any currency. It is currently in closed alpha testing, and I am working with a graphic artist to put a nice face on the web content.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=271825.0

Features:
Testing Mode - the bot uses a test ledger to conduct trades. The balance can be reset at any time.
Spread Calculator - Automatically shows projected fees based on configuration options.
Speed Sim - Back test simulator to test trading strategy against an entire body of price points.
24/7 operation - Bots run unless instructed to not run.
Transaction Log - A record of all bot transactions.
Multiple Bots - When complete, operators will be able to use multiple bots, on multiple accounts, on multiple exchanges, using multiple currencies.

Active, single bot proof of concept running online. (Loads slow....just a proof of concept):
http://www.minzie.com/Lazy/
</thread hijack mode>

@AscotV, the second link contains most of the code for the proof of concept bot, although it has not been updated since June. Also, the language is irrelevant, in spite of what anyone says, and would be dictated by your intended purpose. I also agree that most bots that I have seen are far too complex to be approachable by new operators.

I have to disagree. It is almost exactly as easy as it looks, although it can take a tremendous amount of time. Buy low and sell high is a pretty simple algorithm that grade school children understand. Everything else is built around determining what 'low' is, and what 'high' is in order to trigger a transaction. The proof is in the fact that I have one running, and it works. If I can do it, than anyone can.

A judge certainly can order you to give it up with just cause, and can jail you for contempt of court if you fail to comply. So maybe not 'force', but they can find enough other reasons to make your life miserable that you might be compelled to give it up.

I had slated alpha testing to begin the first week of September, but it looks like I can start adding testers this week. Features are semi-fixed, but I have a few more in the works, such as user account management features.



Features:
- Market Info
- Displays account balances and transaction points.
- Trading configurations
- Test Mode
- Spread calculator
- Historical Data

I still have a couple of slots available for alpha testing. Message me here if interested.

Min

To touch on the point made by Stephan, the exchanges place a limit on how many requests can come from a single IP. For instance, Bitstamp only allows one request per second, and they will quickly ban your IP. Any bot could be made to run multiple instances, it would just need another piece of software to coordinate those requests. I suspect in an instance like this, it would be a reasonably complex task to do so.

I got caught up in some encryption issues that took me a while to work out. I didn't want to have to store passwords anywhere, and I wanted to make it as stateless as possible, so it was a necessary digression, and one I would have had to do anyway. I also added a 'test account' so that various trading strategies can be tested without using real money. This has been a challenge, but I am supporting multiple bots on a single page.

Thank you to those that responded to the request for alpha testers. I am probably still a couple of weeks out. I have no way to manage users at this point, and the GUI needs some more tweaking. I will contact you before too much longer. My goal is to start alpha testing at the beginning the second week of September. I also still have a few testing slots available if any are interested.

I have been working on a web-based BitCoin Trading Bot platform that allows anyone to own their own BitCoin trading bot. This allows the ability to monitor and configure the Bot from any web browser. I have an active web-based proof of concept here.

I am roughly two weeks away from alpha testing the website, and am starting to think about trying to see if there are a few people that might be interested in doing some closed alpha-testing. Each alpha tester will be set up with a test account, and will have an opportunity to do closed beta testing with live Bitstamp accounts. I will nominally fund those accounts. Once the site goes live, beta testers will receive 1 free bot instance, and I will turn the testing account over to them.

If interested, message me here. If questions, please post here.

Features, faqs, and bot code download (stand-alone version) can all be found at the link above, or the link in my signature.

Thanks,
Min

If you are in the United States, you would likely be considered a money transmitter. There was a recent ruling by FinCEN:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154686.0

There are quite a few others on the same topic. Here is a random web page on the topic:
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/fincen-bitcoin-users-not-regulated-exchanges-are/

Before anyone takes what I say too seriously, I am not a lawyer, but I have a related degree, so my analysis comes through my particular lens. I think it could be argued that if you are acting as an agent to convert money, or acting to 'exchange' monetary forms, you would need to be licensed. If you do enough reading on the FinCEN rulings, and take some time with reputable resources to understand exactly what the ruling means, then I think you should have a pretty good feel of what is legal or not. I think you may come to the same conclusion as I.

In reality, I doubt you need to worry about it. The only real threat that I can think of is some under-cover Treasury Official trying to buy Bitcoins for the sole purpose of prosecuting someone. In order for that to happen, someone would really need to have a bug up their ass over Bitcoins. I just don't seeing it happen.

The claim of being "the only real and working Bitcoin Trading Robot out there" is balls.

It looks like you have been working on yours for awhile also. Are you the only one using it, or are others using it also?

One of the other fun questions I have been trying to figure out is how to determine if a bot is 'successful', or that it 'works'. My strategy is to accumulate bitcoins, so as long as I have more than I started with, then I call that a success. I can't pin success on a dollar amount because I could have more Bitcoins than when I started, and have less overall value than when I started. In that case, how much of an increase in BTC over what period of time is considered a success? Again, that depends on the market and whether or not it swings enough to trigger any transactions.

It feels disingenuous (to me) to claim that any bot will make 'x' amount of profit, or to claim that one will see an 'x' percent increase in holdings.

I am completely confident that you have many of the details worked out, and I actually forgot to give you props for not being afraid to talk about your idea. That is so much better than the "Pleaze code for me. I have a secret idea." I hope you didn't think I was being critical of you, because I wasn't. I was just so surprised that someone actually shared their idea that I got a little excited and wanted to offer some considerations that may make it easier for you to find help.

If I may make one suggestion, limit your scope. It is fine to speculate about what you may want to do, but until you decide what the first "phase" is going to look like, you may find it difficult to provide any direction to anyone. 

For example, my current project is a website where I can host web-based trading bots for people that do not have the hardware or technical experience to host their own. Although a simple concept, there are a multitude of parts and pieces that make it too difficult to consider all of them at once in anything other than general terms. In order to do this, I broke it down into small steps.

Step 1: Create a standalone bot that follows a simple buy low, sell high strategy.
Step 2: Update the standalone bot to include additional configurations, such as stop limits, etc.
Step 3: Add a user interface to the standalone version so that it runs in a web browser.
Step 4: Create a demo web page to show that the bot works in a web based environment.
Step 5: Create web page with limited slots.
Step 6: ..........

This is a high level view. Obviously each phase has smaller parts, but if you can describe each of the phases in a succinct manner, those smaller parts are easy to figure out, and are somewhat implied. For instance, in my step 1, it should be sort of obvious that there needs to be a 'bot' script, a way to query the exchange for information, and a way to store relevant data. Once you get to that point, then you can start to think about implementation details.

Anyway, my point is that if you cannot clearly define your goals, then it is going to be hard to proceed. If you tell me "I want to create a website that acts as a savings account for digital currency", then I have an idea of what might be needed, and I will better be able to ask questions that will help you tease out your expectations.

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Now to the questions at hand, what problem are you trying to solve? What do you hope to accomplish? Why would someone use your service? What would the first phase of this project look like?

A ticker shouldn't be difficult. It should just be a matter of reading a value from somewhere and using some calculation to determine profit/loss. Monitoring an address on the blockchain is not hard either.

I didn't mention, but I have an active demo running on a test web page at http://www.minzie.com/Lazy/ that is actively trading on a live test account. The source code for a stand alone version can also be downloaded. I have not done anything with the stand-alone version as far as creating an installer or anything like that, but I will be willing to help set it up if anyone is interested.

I have been working on a trading bot for about three months now, and I thought I would share some of my experiences thus far.

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Developing a trading bot with a limited function set is a fun exercise, and not what I would describe as overly complex. Implementing an algorithm to buy low and sell high should be well within the grasp of most first year computer science students. Adding a few additional parameters is not all that complex either, but the possible interactions between parameters does get complex quickly.

Transaction fees are not assessed how I initially thought they were. Everybody knows that exchanges charge a nominal fee. What I did not realize was that a single transaction on my side can trigger multiple transactions on the exchange side. For example, let us say that I wish to buy three BitCoins for $100 each. At that exact time, there are two sellers holding three BitCoins collectively that they are willing to sell for $100 each. The exchange makes two purchases on my behalf, and I get charged for two transactions. While this is not a huge deal, it makes it difficult to predict overhead.

I also realized rather quickly that the GUI is a separate application from the actual trading bot. While the idea of separating the view from the model is a basic tenet of software engineering, the temptation to be lazy and write code that binds both applications to each other is tremendous. Equally tempting is to create duplicate code for both applications. I find this aspect very interesting because I do not often get to work on anything other than portions of the overall code, and I never get to work on the back end.

While I mentioned that creating a trading bot is not overly complex, there are some interesting challenges. Limit orders are one of those challenges. Typically when one makes a purchase, they would like to see their balances updated immediately. With a limit order, the problem becomes harder. One is not sure when the order will go through, so the GUI will not know when it needs to update to reflect the current balance in the account.  I could continually ping the exchange until I get the information that I need. This is not necessarily practical, as discussed in the next section.

Due to ongoing and persistent attacks, exchanges have been forced to employ extreme measures to keep themselves in business, such as only allowing so many connection attempts per timeslice. From a development standpoint, I have to account for those limitations. The BitStamp API states that one connects to their site no more than once per second, and I can vouch that if you exceed that limit, your IP will be banned.

My objective is to have several bots operating at the same time on the same machine, so I have to consider timing issues versus the limitations on requests from the exchange. For my single instance test, I am just using some hard coded delays to stay well within limits. I am considering just using a simple queue to coordinate bot instances.

These restrictions have also forced me to consider the longest acceptable period of time before updating the GUI. I have it set to 30 seconds, although the bots themselves only update once a minute. The trick is to find a nice balance between an acceptable staleness of data, and frequency of updates. My particular strategy means that sometimes the market data is out of synch with what the GUI is displaying. If one considers that data is stale the moment they see it, then it just becomes a discussion of degrees of staleness.

The user interface is hard. Some of the interfaces I have seen for other trading bots are incomprehensible to me. I don’t mean that as a criticism to anyone; everyone has their own concept, and I am certainly no expert on what data should be available, or how it should be displayed. I just find some of the interfaces daunting. The user needs a certain amount of data in order to make an informed decision, and if one looks at the bots available, one can see that they all display the same data, more or less. The challenge for me is to give my bot a visual ‘personality’, and still provide the same information.

Basic math is hard. Not because it really is hard, but for some reason I think it beneath me to test it. It’s basic math, who needs to test? (Answer: This guy).

Day to day, I do not really have the opportunity to delve into the theoretical parts of computer science as part of the regular decision making process. With this project though, I am looking a queues, scheduling, distributed systems, cryptography, database encryption, and a host of other issues that actually utilize my education.

EDIT: Forgot link: http://www.minzie.com/Lazy/

Did you mean 'ability to work on a production system'? I am guessing that by 'system', you mean the production environment?

I have been trying to work out an interface for a trading bot, and I am having a hard time working out how to organize the information in a way that is clear. Frankly, I have not seen any trading bots whose interface I would call user friendly. Since I am trying to make this code useful to others, I am a curious about a few things:

• Can someone who has never seen this interface before generally figure out what the information represents?
• Is the format too compressed spatially?
• Does the order of information make sense?

Thanks for any feedback. If someone has a better suggestion for the gosh-awful color scheme I chose, I am open to ideas.


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I have a version of the bot simulator code that I am testing that is available to anyone that wants it. I normally hate to directly link to code, but it is just PHP and Javascript. It is documented and easily readable.

www.minzie.com/files/Lazy_v.0.2.zip

If this is a no-no, I will include a link to a blog page where the code can be downloaded, but that seems spammy.

Min

  Tons of features. Nice!

(Sorry for the lame 2 line post)