Bots are used to make money without having to sit at a keyboard and watch the market happen. Bots are also used to manipulate a coin upward or downward.
The bots on Cryptsy and Bittrex right now are set to drive the price down. Until the bots are killed by being bought out COMPLETELY or until the bot owner decides to turn them off, the price will keep being pushed downward. During this time, miners dumping and panic sellers will set their sell orders cheaper than the bot (not even knowing it is a bot that they are playing against) and thus driving the price even lower.
As miners continue to mine, each day they bring in less and less coins. To make a consistent income, the price needs to rise just a bit every day. When they undersell the low order, not only do they have less coins - but each coin will make them less money. Most of the miners don't get it. They think they have to sell low and sell now before they lose any chance at ROI. If they would collectively get a grasp of what they are doing to themselves, and price upward, they might just see an ROI plus some profit before their rigs become obsolete and thus a net loss.
This will cause potential longer term investors to turn away from the coin because it will look weak.
If instead, everyone set their sell order HIGHER than the current sell order, just by a little bit, the bot will end up being the low-baller and people like me with some BTC to throw around will buy out the bot and let the coin grow. Then all the little guys with just a couple bucks in LTCD will be able to sell higher and actually maybe double or triple their money. Longer term investors will take note and buy in, driving it up even more. Wouldn't be hard for a little guy to turn 10 dollars into a couple hundred within a week, if the little guys would just get a clue.
I still don't understand how these bots work and why you would use them. Maybe because I don't have much to play with, I don't want a program screwing around with it. That, I have never seen one in use. Maybe it works for the big fish and benefits them in some way. How do you beat the bot at it's game?