Bitbot

A RPA bot that specializes in high frequency trading of cryptocurrency


Robotic Process Automation
Machine Learning
High Frequency Trading
The Partner

Autonomous Trading Systems Inc (ATS) is a Miami-based company that provides high frequency trading (HFT) robots as a service (RaaS). Formed in 2015, the team is made up of top executives from varying organizations (Sony, BTP Global) who identified a unique opportunity in the electronic cryptocurrency space.

The Problem

After several years analyzing trends within the various Bitcoin exchanges, ATS had developed a trading strategy that sought to capitalize on certain recurring market inefficiencies. Critical to their strategy was discovering opportunities and then capitalizing on them. In the cryptocurrency space as is true in other trading, the timeframe for recognizing an opportunity is often measured in milliseconds. Given the limitations of a manual approach, ATS required the development of a sophisticated bot to automate the discovery, analysis, & execution for these trades. Beyond speed & strategic viability, the system also needed to have Machine Learning/AI built in so that it could stay competitive over time, evolving with the ever-changing market.

The Process

Given the nature of the request and the fact that this bot would be tasked with handling six figure portfolios on the low end, the margin for error was substantially less than with other proof of concepts (POCs) that we’d worked on in the past. Traditionally we encourage the release of products that incorporate a “Build, Measure, Learn” feedback loop, often prioritizing market feedback over a stakeholders internal perception of completeness. With Bitbot however, market validation was derived entirely from the bot’s ability to make positive financial gains using the algorithmic trading strategy that had been agreed upon. Following an extensive requirements gathering phase, the Codelitt team set out to build the first iteration of the platform within 4 weeks. The goal: generate just one dollar of profit when the system went live.

Generate just one dollar of profit
when the system went live.

The Solution

Robotic process automation (RPA) was the solution for this high frequency trading problem. RPA can be applied across many, many industries, but it is commonly used by investment banks, hedge funds, and institutional investors to execute millions of orders and scan multiple markets/exchanges in seconds. Removing the manual human element gives these institutions a huge advantage in the open market.

To build a fast and reliable trading bot, we leveraged technologies that provided a reliable testing environment, fast execution time, and robust error handling which allowed us to introduce changes at the velocity required for this kind of project. Bitbot leverages a few Ruby/Java microservices responsible for its trading system and Ruby on Rails on the backend. Even though the value of Bitbot is in the backend platform, the client requested a simple dashboard to monitor the “status/health” and get a snapshot of its most recent activity. For this frontend dashboard we chose to use React.js.

An intelligent bot is only as good as the information you provide it, so our development team built out a series of APIs that feed real-time data to a secured web-based frontend with information pertaining to:

  • Exchange based balances
  • Executed opportunities in last 30 days
  • Average profit %, Largest profit %, Smallest profit %
  • Potential opportunities
  • Opportunities out of bounds
  • History by days
  • History by hours
  • Values of dynamic parameters
The Impact

After the completion of the first phase of development, Bitbot executed a succession of micro-transactions yielding $5 in profit after being live for only 2 minutes. This successful POC gave ATS the confidence they needed to confirm the viability of the initial trading strategy and move forward with subsequent development iterations, shoring up the platform ahead of an invite to private investors.

Tech that we used to build it

Ruby

Rabbit MQ

Postgres

Java 8

Ruby on Rails

React

Docker

Bitbot executed a succession of micro-transactions, yielding $5 in profit after being live for only 2 minutes