General Overview

What is a Bot?

A trading bot is an automated program designed to perform specific trading actions on your behalf. It follows predefined rules or reacts to signals (external or internal) to execute trades. The primary goal is to take the emotion out of trading and let the bot respond to market conditions rapidly.

How Does the Bot Trade for You?

Our bots operate by connecting your account to our partner, ProfitView, via an API key generated on your behalf. This API key grants the bot permission to trade on your behalf based on the rules you configure.

• You can view your API key at any time in the API Keys page under the Your ProfitView API Keys section.
• If you want to disable or remove the bot’s connection to ProfitView, you can deactivate or delete the API key from this page. This action will stop any bots currently running on your account.

The bots trade based on a combination of external and internal signals. Examples include:

• External Signals: Monitoring social media, such as Elon Musk’s tweets, or reacting to macroeconomic reports like CPI or job data.
• Internal Signals: Utilizing BitMEX’s public and private data feeds to run technical analysis on price action, order book data, or trading volume.

---

Bot Discovery

Finding the Right Bot

Tags

Bots are tagged with relevant information, making it easy to search and filter. Tags include:

• Author: Who created the bot.
• Directional Strategy: Whether the bot is long-only, short-only, or neutral.
• Technical Analysis (TA) Tags: Specific technical indicators or strategies used (e.g., Bollinger Bands, RSI, or Grid).
• Symbol: The asset the bot trades.

You can filter either by the search bar at the top, which will give you options to filter, or by clicking on a tag on one of the bots, which will show you a filtered list of bots that meet the criteria.

Bot Metrics

Each bot displays key metrics such as Total Users, AUM (Assets Under Management), Indicative ROI, and Indicative Max Drawdown (coming soon). These metrics help you evaluate the popularity, potential returns, and risks of using the bot.

• AUM reflects the total USD value of the assets under management for all users running that bot.
• Indicative ROI provides an estimate of the potential return on investment based on historical performance.
• Indicative Max Drawdown shows the estimated maximum loss based on backtested data, helping users understand the bot’s risk profile.

Types

There are some meta types for bots that define, at a high level, what the bot will do:

• Grid (Neutral, Long, Short): A grid bot places buy and sell orders at predefined intervals, creating a “grid” of orders above and below the current price.

  • Long Grids: These bots only place buy orders (bids) and require a take profit (TP) level to close the position.
  • Short Grids: These bots only place sell orders (asks) and also require a take profit (TP) level to close the position.
  • Neutral Grids: These bots place both buy and sell orders, aiming to profit from price fluctuations in both directions.

• VWAP (Volume-Weighted Average Price): A VWAP bot calculates the average price of an asset, weighted by volume, over a specific period. The bot typically aims to execute orders at prices that are in line with or better than the VWAP, ensuring that trades reflect the true market value during periods of varying volume.

• TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price): A TWAP bot spreads large orders over a specified time period to reduce the impact on the market price. It places smaller orders at regular intervals to ensure the average price paid (or received) is close to the market average over the duration of the order.

• Momentum: A momentum bot identifies and enters trades based on the strength of price movements. It typically buys when prices are rising and sells when prices are falling, assuming that the trend will continue. This type of bot is ideal for capitalizing on market trends but may involve more risk in volatile markets.

• Other (Signal-Based): These bots open positions based on specific signals, such as technical indicators, fundamental news, or social sentiment. They often place market orders and react quickly to new data, ensuring trades are executed as soon as signals trigger.

Descriptions

The author of each bot can create a name and a short description for the bot. They may also include long-form descriptions and provide a TradingView chart to show the technical analysis (TA) that the bot is based on.

---

How to List a Bot on BitMEX

Currently, the only bots allowed on BitMEX are those written by trusted authors, either employees or vetted partners. BitMEX has a rigorous vetting process for all bots to ensure quality and compliance.

Vetting Process

1. Code Review: The bot’s code is thoroughly reviewed to ensure it meets security, performance, and reliability standards.
2. Compliance Review: The bot is checked for adherence to regulatory requirements and BitMEX’s policies.
3. Product Review: The bot is evaluated for its functionality, intended use, and the potential value it offers users on the platform. This includes whether it fits into the product ecosystem and provides a unique or valuable strategy.

Bots flagged as “unvetted” come from external sources where we cannot verify the validity of the data or provide a backtest. We also cannot offer indicative ROI or max drawdown for these bots.

Verified Bots: These bots use only internal data sources and undergo the full vetting process. Once vetted, we are able to provide users with backtested performance metrics such as Indicative ROI and Indicative Max Drawdown (coming soon).

---

Bot Configuration

How to Configure a Bot

To customize a bot, click the Configure button or the edit icon. Each bot comes with different configurable parameters based on its trading strategy. This allows you to adjust key inputs like trade size, time intervals, and risk management settings.

List of Available Parameters

1. Grid Side: Grid direction, can be one of “long” or “short”. If set, the grid bot will only place limit orders that maintain this intent.
2. Max Position Size: Maximum “long” or “short” position size the bot can take in the instrument.
3. Grid Spread: Distance between each limit order in basis points (bps). One basis point is equivalent to 0.01%.
4. Grid Count: The total number of limit orders that can be placed on either side of the market (i.e., bid or ask).
5. Limit Post Only: If supported by the venue, limit orders will be submitted in “post-only” mode. Limit orders will only be placed if they don’t immediately fill.
6. Order Fill Delay: How long the bot will wait in seconds after a fill before placing new orders. Current open orders can still be amended, but the total open size of orders will not increase during the delay period.
7. Order Min Percent Change: The minimum order price change in basis points (bps) required to update an existing limit order. One basis point is equivalent to 0.01%.
8. Order Refresh Delay: How long the bot will wait in seconds between consecutive order creations and amendments.
9. Trading Run Duration: The duration in minutes over which the bot will seek to acquire the target position. A lower run time indicates more urgency, possibly impacting execution price.
10. Trading Start Time: The future time when the bot will start. If not set, the bot starts immediately.
11. Close On Stop: If enabled, your positions will be closed at the market price when the bot is stopped.
12. Max Order Size: Maximum size of an order that can be placed at a particular price.
13. Max Position Size Long: Maximum “long” position size the bot can take in the instrument.
14. Max Position Size Short: Maximum “short” position size the bot can take in the instrument.
15. Price Max: Maximum price at which any bid or ask orders can be placed.
16. Price Max Buy: Maximum price for which the bot can place buy orders. Above this price, only sell orders can be placed.
17. Price Min: Minimum price at which any bid or ask orders can be placed.
18. Price Min Sell: Minimum price for which the bot can place sell orders. Below this price, only buy orders can be placed.
19. Stop Loss Percent: Stop loss set as a percentage distance away from the average entry price.
20. Stop Loss Price: Stop loss set as a fixed price level, where the entire position is closed.
21. Trail Stop Loss Percent: Trailing stop loss - initially set as a percentage below the market price (for a long position) and trails price increases. The stop level does not move down if the price decreases.
22. Trail Stop Loss Entry Percent: A trailing stop loss that locks once a certain percentage above the entry price is reached, helping lock in profits.
23. Take Profit Price: Take profit set at a fixed price level, where the entire position is closed.
24. Take Profit Percent: Take profit set as a percentage distance from the average entry price.

---

Bot Operations

How to Use the Bot

After selecting a bot, click Play to run the bot using its default parameters. Clicking Pause will stop the bot and give you a chance to review and close any open orders. The Configure button allows you to modify the bot’s parameters to suit your strategy.

Bot Run Time and Notifications

The bot will continue running until manually stopped. In the event of unexpected issues, such as insufficient margin or an error between the bot and the exchange, the bot will stop, and an email will be sent to notify you of the issue.