Category Archives: Gunbot

Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Blog, Dash (DASH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Gunbot, Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Trading

Gunbot Crypto Trading 5: Emotionless Trading

Previous posts:

Trading So Far

The situation as we left it in my last post is that Gunbot had made 3 complete buy-sell trades of 0.002 BTC each using the ‘Emotionless’ strategy. It had then bought again, and hadn’t seemed to be able to sell again that day. In fact early the following day it did manage to sell, and then later that morning it bought and sold again quickly. Each trade was, naturally, profit making, though only to the tune of about 10p.

Emboldened by this I increased the stake for each trade to 0.005 BTC (about £33). Gunbot soon did another Ether trade, for a profit of about 27p, so a healthy gain of about 0.8%.

I was impatient to see more trades and profits at this point, so I increased the stake to 0.01 BTC and added further coin pairs:

  • Bitcoin – Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
  • Bitcoin – Litecoin (LTC)
  • Bitcoin – Ethereum Classic (ETC)
  • Bitcoin – Dash (DASH)
  • Bitcoin – Ripple (XRP)

This naturally increased the transaction volume, here’s what’s happened since:

Poloniex Trade History: Gunbot trading Ether with Emotionless Strategy - more coins (Image: BIUK)
Poloniex Trade History: Gunbot trading Ether with Emotionless Strategy – more coins (Image: BIUK)

In a nutshell, Ether trading has continued solidly but Gunbot has also regularly bought and sold Litecoin, and Ethereum Classic, and also made single completed trades with Dash and Ripple. Bitcoin Cash is nowhere to be seen.

Profits so far, in Bitcoin:

  • Ethereum: 0.00059094
  • Litecoin: 0.00032900
  • Ethereum Classic: 0.00032669
  • Dash: 0.00007898
  • Ripple: 0.00013795
  • Total: 0.00146356 (about £10)

So not a bad start having been out of bot trading for some time.

Advanced Trading

One thing I like very much about the latest Gunbot is the charts in the user interface – they pretty much reproduce what you get in Poloniex or Trading View with the addition of clear markers of where Gunbot bought and sold.

Gunbot chart with buy/sell indicators (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot chart with buy/sell indicators (Image: BIUK)

What this highlighted for me, though, was that the Emotionless strategy is a bit ‘literal’. What I mean is that Gunbot is selling once it achieves the profit it has been set but is missing opportunities for greater profit. For example, in the middle of the screenshot shown we can see that Gunbot sold even though the market was rising fast and if it had waited a couple more minutes the profit would have been many times greater (perhaps even 10x).

I believe this consideration of trend is part of other strategies, particularly those using Trading Stop / Stop Limit (TSSL) which wasn’t an option in my previous Gunbot version. I’m therefore going to investigate that further before changing any more Gunbot settings, in particular increasing the trading stakes.

Bitcoin (BTC), Blog, Ethereum, Gunbot, Poloniex Exchange, Trading

Gunbot Crypto Trading 4: Your First Gunbot Trade

Previous posts:

Strategy

After my previous post, creating my first Gunbot Setup in this version of Gunbot using the Bollinger Band strategy, I had a change of heart. I decided to try the Emotionless strategy instead, something I don’t remember being an option in my previously installed versions.

Emotionless is described on the Wiki as follows:

“The Emotionless strategy is fully tuned and ready to use, even for novice traders! It’s meant to be a relatively safe strategy, with modest but steady gains.

“With this strategy, you don’t need to think about setting the right or best parameters: it’s all there already. You only need to set the basics like your trading limit and choose on which pairs you want to trade. Optionally, you can increase GAIN slightly.

“Behind the scenes, an advanced algorithm based on the Ichimoku cloud indicator does the hard work. The specifics will not be disclosed.”

Given I haven’t used Gunbot seriously in many months this seemed like a good bet. I cancelled the run and restarted it with the strategy set to Emotionless. I kept all other settings the same.

Trading

I then went to bed, and didn’t check the results until the next morning. Success! Gunbot had bought some Ether and sold it again at a higher price during the night.

I suspect you won’t be impressed if I say the profit made was just 0.00001482 BTC (worth about 10p) but that is to miss the point. The stake, remember, was just 0.002 BTC (£13) and the setting for GAIN is 0.6, i.e. aim to make a profit of 0.6%. In fact the profit is 0.74% so the bot has done really well.

Of course, once you have gained confidence that the bot is working then you naturally increase the stake. If it were set to 1 Bitcoin, for example, then each trade would make a profit of about £50 and you could get multiple trades in one day. 10 BTC would make you £500 per trade, and so on.

In this case I left the bot running unchanged and it has now made 3 complete trades (for a total profit of 2.25%). In any other field such a gain in 2 days would be unprecedented.

Here’s the record of transactions so far:

Poloniex Trade History: Gunbot trading Ether with Emotionless Strategy (Image: BIUK)
Poloniex Trade History: Gunbot trading Ether with Emotionless Strategy (Image: BIUK)

Note that the bot has since gone on to buy again, but has not yet sold. It will be interesting to see if it sells successfully or if the market drops and it’s left holding Ether it can’t sell – I’ll report back once the outcome is clear.

Update: Gunbot Crypto Trading 5: Emotionless Trading

Bitcoin (BTC), Blog, Cryptocurrency, Gunbot

Gunbot Crypto Trading 3: Your First Gunbot Setup

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Previous posts:

Initial Setup

Click on Create my first setup. For Setup Name I use the name of the exchange, also select the exchange in the Exchange dropdown. The pair of coins to trade is nearly always Bitcoin and another coin, both specified by their common abbreviation. I’m starting with Bitcoin trading against Ether, so I enter BTC-ETH. The strategy I choose is bb (‘Bollinger Band‘) because it’s the one I’m most experienced with – though I plan to try out others very soon.

Setup with a new trading pair (Image: BIUK)
Setup with a new trading pair (Image: BIUK)

Click Add pair. The new pair will appear as a tab in the lower window, with settings on the left and a Trading View window on the right. Repeat the process if you want to add more trading pairs.

A new trading pair added (Image: BIUK)
A new trading pair added (Image: BIUK)

Click Create. You’ll get a message “Setup created! Go to the dashboard to preview and run your setup.” Click on Go to dashboard.

 

Preview and Run

You are now in the preview screen – here you can check all the settings for the setup by clicking on the triangle marker next to each set. I’ll accept the defaults, however you may want to review how much Gunbot will spend on each trade – for this go to the particular strategy you selected under strategies and review TRADING_LIMIT (this is the amount in Bitcoin). The default is 0.002 (currently about £13).

Preview screen (Image: BIUK)
Preview screen (Image: BIUK)

Click Run Gunbot. A gunthy.exe command window will open (allow it if asked by Windows Firewall). The trading pair tab will now contain a and a trading view window and a window showing real-time output from gunthy.exe (the actual Gunbot bot).

Gunbot running (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot running (Image: BIUK)

That’s it – Gunbot is up and running and ready to trade when the conditions are right. We’ll go over the details of the trading in future posts.

Next post: Gunbot Crypto Trading 4: Your First Gunbot Trade

Bitcoin (BTC), Blog, Cryptocurrency, Gunbot, Trading

Gunbot Crypto Trading 2: Installing Gunbot

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I have previously described Gunbot and how it works, including how to prepare for using it. Here I cover installation and initial setup.

Installation

Download and unzip the most recent version of Gunbot from GitHub (obviously you will need to have paid for a license for it to work). I run the Windows version and have mine in a C:/Gunbot/Latest folder (and move older versions into other folders as they get replaced).

Gunbot folder and files (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot folder and files (Image: BIUK)

Double-click on gunthy-gui.exe to run the Gunbot user interface. If you get a message about needing to get something from the Windows store, cancel it. If you get a message from Windows Defender Firewall, Allow access.

You should have a Windows command window running that says “Gunthy GUI <version> running on http://localhost:5000″.

In a new brower tab (I recommend Chrome as the browser) type in the address “localhost:5000” and enter.

 

Gunbot User Interface

You should now see the Gunbot interface up and running – the first time it will take you to the Login screen.

Gunbot Login screen (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot Login screen (Image: BIUK)

If you don’t get that then you may need to open access to port 5000 through the Firewall – for more details see the official installation video.

Choose and enter a password, record it somewhere safe, then click on Create password. You are now in the main Gunbot dashboard.

Gunbot Dashboard after first login (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot Dashboard after first login (Image: BIUK)

Assuming you are a new user, and so don’t have an existing config file, select Start without import.

On the next screen, Settings/API Keys, enter the API Key and Secret for the exchange you want to use (I use Poloniex). I have previously covered the method to get an API key for the Bitfinex exchange, but it’s a very similar process on most exchanges.

Gunbot settings screen for API keys (Image: BIUK)
Gunbot settings screen for API keys (Image: BIUK)

With Master Key enabled, click Add. You should get the message “API Key sucessfully added!” and it should be shown in the table at the bottom of the screen.

Next post: Gunbot Crypto Trading 3: Your First Gunbot Setup

Bitcoin (BTC), Blog, Cryptocurrency, Gunbot

Gunbot Crypto Trading 1: Starting With Gunbot

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What is Gunbot?

Gunbot is an automated bot (robotic software) for trading cryptocurrencies, primarily trading Bitcoin with other crypto coins (‘altcoins’). It was coded by Gunthar De Niro (‘Gunthy‘) with support from the Bitcointalk community.

The theory for trading with Gunbot is relatively straightforward:

  1. You deposit some Bitcoin on a trading exchange.
  2. You request remote access to your account via an API Key and give the Key details to the bot.
  3. You setup the bot, using particular settings to specify how you want it to trade (e.g. what level of risk/reward, etc.).
  4. You start the bot. It runs 24/7 and when the trading conditions are right it buys and sells coins on your behalf using the Bitcoin in your account.
  5. The intention is that it will buy an altcoin at a low price, determined by its trading history, and hold on to it until its price goes above a certain threshold (allowing for trading fees) when it will sell it.
  6. In most cases this works well and makes a profit, and the bot is then ready to make the next trade.
  7. In a small proportion of cases the altcoin price goes down steadily and cannot be sold (this is known as ‘holding a bag’). At that point you need to step in and, in some cases, sell the altcoin at a loss.
  8. With good settings, and regular monitoring, in my experience trading with Gunbot will make more money than it loses and can produce a significant income over time.

 

Preparing to Use Gunbot

Before you use Gunbot for the first time it is worthwhile to learn about how it operates and what its features and limitations are.

  1. Spend some time in the Gunbot Wiki to get familiar with the bot, how it runs, what strategies it uses, etc.
  2. Read at least the last dozen or so pages of the Gunbot thread on BitcoinTalk to learn about recent changes, and any issues or bugs found. Join BitcoinTalk if you aren’t already a member.
  3. Do the same for the Gunthy forum.
  4. When you feel ready to take the plunge buy a copy of Gunbot from an authorised reseller.
  5. Get an API key for your exchange(s) and have it linked to your Gunbot licence by your reseller.
  6. Join the Telegram group to get support (the link will be provided once you’ve bought the bot).

When you’re ready, see my next blog post and learn how to install and setup Gunbot.

 

Blog, Gunbot

My Thoughts on Gunbot

2 Comments

I’ve been asked if I think Gunbot is a scam and can generate 1% returns per day – here are my initial comments.

Gunbot Automatic Trading Bot (Image: Flippener)
Gunbot Automatic Trading Bot (Image: Flippener)

I own Gunbot and I’m pretty happy with it. You have to understand how it works though – basically it buys altcoins that are significantly below their average price then waits until they’ve gone up about 2% then sells them. After fees you’ve made 1%. It does that pretty well.

However, there can be days when no altcoins do that so you get nothing. And now and again the altcoin will keep going down so you can be left with a ‘bag’ of an altcoin you didn’t want. In most cases for me, the price has gone back up and the profit has been made – but that 1% maybe took a month to achieve.

So it works, it does what it says on the tin, but it’s small and steady gains rather than a moneymaking machine. Having said that, if you have quite a lot of BTC then 1% is significant – my Gunbot paid for itself in about 2 weeks.

I run mine on a free Amazon VPS because it needs to run 24/7.