Help Center
Advanced DCA Bot
Introduction
This article will explore the DCA bot’s main settings.
The settings page consists of several sections that can be rearranged according to your preferences.
This article is valid for both creating a new DCA bot and editing the existing bot.
PLEASE REMEMBER! If you edit the existing DCA bot and save the new settings, they will be applied to ONLY new trades! Already opened and active trades will not be affected, you will need to edit them manually!
Before we begin, please ensure the “Advanced” option is selected on the top right corner of the “Create Bot” page:
Main settings
Here you can give your bot a Name, choose the Exchange and choose the Bot type.
Name
Create any name for your bot, you will see it in your bots list and active trades. You can name it by trading pair or settings. But try to create a unique name for your bot so it won’t get lost among other bots.
Exchange
You can choose an exchange account where the bot is going to trade.
Bot Type
You can choose Single-pair for a bot that will trade with only one coin pair.
You can also choose Multi-pair to create a bot that can trade many different coin pairs:
Pairs
Recommended pairs
There is a dynamically updated list of coin pairs with the biggest trading volume for the last 24 hours:
Please remember – the recommended pairs will only show depending on what exchange is used and if there is a coin/-s that was/were traded the most in the last 24hrs. Thus, sometimes this section is not displayed.
Pairs
You can choose a coin pair for the Single-pair bot to trade with or several coins for the Multi-pair bot:
Note! You can’t choose pairs with different QUOTE currency on the same bot.
For example, you can’t select XRP/BTC, ADA/BTC, ADA/ETH, and XRP/ETH on the same Multi-pair bot. In that case, you have to set up two different bots: one for ***/BTC and another one for ***/ETH.
The button “***_ALL” will add all available coins which are traded with the selected QUOTE currency.
The button “Clear” will remove everything from the list.
Strategy
Here you can adjust more specific settings for your trading strategy.
Max active deals
❗This option is available only for Multi-pair bots.
It means how many deals the bot may open at the same time. If the bot was allowed to trade with 20 pairs, but there are only enough funds on your exchange account to support five simultaneous trades, ‘5’ should be entered here in this field. It allows the bot to start only 5 deals with the coins that you’ve selected. After one of the trades finishes, the bot will look for the next one to be started by the same criteria.
Strategy
Long and Short strategies are described in this article.
Profit currency
Here you can choose which currency the bot should accumulate.
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When ‘Quote’ is active, the bot will make profits in the QUOTE currency that stands on the right side of the pair – ETH/BTC, NEO/BTC, ADA/BTC will take profit in BTC.
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When ‘Base’ is active, the bot will make profits in the BASE currency that stands on the left side of the pair – ETH/BTC – profit taken in ETH; XRP/BTX – profit taken in XRP; ADA/USDT profit taken in ADA and so on.
Base order size
This is the first order the bot will create when starting a new deal. If put 20 here and select ADA/USDT pair for the bot, then launch it, the bot will buy ADA with 20 USDT after the new LONG deal is opened.
In the Single-pair bot you can choose the Base order currency type:
1. Absolute amount in Quote currency (i.e. using 20 USDT to buy ADA).
2. Absolute amount in Base currency (i.e. buying 20 ADA with USDT).
3. % of the Total amount of Quote currency on the balance (i.e. 2% of 1000 USDT on your balance will make the Base order size equal to 20 USDT).
In the Multi-pair bot it’s possible to choose only Absolute amount in Quote currency:
IMPORTANT NOTE!
If you create a bot on the Futures market, the Base order size (and the Safety order size, as well as Manual SO) will already include the leverage. For example, if you have put 100 USDT as the Base order size, the trade will be opened with 100 USDT size, but in fact, with the x20 leverage, only 5 USDT of real funds will be used.
Start order type
Here you can determine what order type will be the Base order – Limit or Market.
If it needs to be a quick decision to enter the deal, select the Market order (it may enter the deal faster, but not at the best price). If there is a need for the bot to enter the deal at the best price, then select the Limit order. To prevent slippage for big orders, it will be placed at the best ASK price for a Long trade and at the best BID price for a Short trade. Though it might take a longer time to open this deal, there will be no slippage, and the Base order will be executed at the specified price. But if the order will not be fully filled in 40 seconds, the order will be replaced at best BID/ASK price again. It will retry until the Limit entry order will be fully filled.
Limit order type is when the order is placed in the exchange’s order book and waits to be executed.
Market order type is when the order is executed immediately at the current market price. If the order size is very big and/or the liquidity is low and/or volatility is high, there may be a slippage when the order is executed at a worse price.
Deal start condition
More detailed information about different deal start conditions you can find in the following articles:
Take profit
Target profit (%)
This is the profit target that the bot should make from each successful deal. When the bot opens a new trade, it will place the Take Profit order using the percentage that is specified in this field.
Please note – the bot will place the TP order taking into account the exchange’s trading fees.
Take profit type
Percentage from base order – the bot will calculate the Take profit target using the initial (base) order size only, without taking the total bought volume into calculations. Let’s say a deal was opened with an initial order size of $100 and a target profit of 5% ($5), after this the price drops. As a result, by using the safety orders the bot purchased coins for $900 more, and now the total trade volume is $1000. The bot will place a Take profit order in order to get $5 profit (5% from $100) and not 5% from $1000.
Percentage from total volume (by default) – the bot will take profit from total trade volume. From the previous example, the bot will place a Take profit order in a way to get 5% from $1000.
Trailing
Turns on the trailing feature for the Take profit order. Order becomes Market and is not placed in the exchange’s order book (see more info above).
Please remember – market order type (when trailing is active) may cause losses due to high volatility and/or big order size and/or low liquidity, especially if the deviation is too big.
More detailed information about Trailing take profit feature you can find in this article:
Trailing Take Profit: Catch the Rise
Stop Loss
Stop Loss (%) – if the coin price drops to or below this level, the bot will perform the selected action. The value should be below the last safety order. The bot calculates the stop loss level from the base order price and not the deal average price.
Stop Loss action:
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Close deal – the bot will close the deal in a loss at market rates.
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Close deal & stop bot – the bot will close the deal in a loss at market rates and stop. It won’t open new deals afterward.
Stop Loss timeout – This will prevent the bot from immediately executing the Stop Loss order and can be useful to prevent the bot from closing a deal due to erroneous candle wicks or Stop Loss “hunts”. The timer is activated when the price reaches or exceeds the Stop Loss % you configure; if the price has not recovered before the timer expires, then the bot will close the active deal at the current chart price. The time is specified in seconds.
Please note that when editing the bot, it doesn’t affect already opened deals’ stop-loss action. Edit active deals individually in the trade if you want to change the stop loss action immediately. For example, you have a bot with an active deal, the bot has stop loss action set to “Close deal & stop bot.” If you edit the bot by changing the stop loss action to “Close deal”, and you don’t edit the deal, the bot will still stop if the deal reaches stop loss level.
Safety Orders
The bot is going to place safety orders after you have opened the trade to average your buy price if the coin goes in an unfavorable direction:
Safety order size
This setting determines safety orders’ volume. If put 0.003 here and keep other settings as they are, when the deal opens, the bot will place 5 safety orders on -1%, -2%, -3%, etc. from starting price of each 0.003 BTC in size.
Price deviation to open safety orders (% from initial order)
Distance in percent between Base order and 1st Safety order. If put 1 here and start a new deal at $100, the first safety order will be placed at $99.
Max safety orders count
The maximum amount of safety orders that can be placed and executed for one deal.
Max active safety orders count
This means how many safety orders the bot will keep open on the exchange at the same time. Let’s say there is an amount of three active orders and ten maximum safety orders. When the bot begins a new deal, he will automatically place three safety orders and keep seven more to spare. If the price drops and the first safety order fills, the bot will put another one, thus, still having three active safety orders at the same time and six more in spare. Thus, when the price is going down, and safety orders are filling, the bot will open new ones until he reaches the maximum amount of ten. If set “Max safety trades count” and “Max active safety trades count” with the same number, the bot will place all available safety orders for a new deal just after it is opened.
Safety order volume scale
The scale will multiply the volume of each new safety order.
Let’s assume there is a bot with safety trade size 0.1 BTC and a scale is 2. Safety order volumes would be:
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0.1 BTC.
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Last safety order volume multiplied by scale. 0.1 * 2 = 0.2 BTC.
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Last safety order volume multiplied by scale. 0.2 * 2 = 0.4 BTC.
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0.4 * 2 = 0.8 BTC
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0.8 * 2 = 1.6 BTC
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…
Safety order step scale
The scale will multiply step in percents between safety orders.
Let’s assume there is a bot with a safety order price deviation 1% and the scale is 2. Safety order prices would be:
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It’s the first order, we use deviation to place it: 0 + -1% = -1%.
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Previous safety order step multiplied by the scale and then added to the last order percentage. The last step was 1%, the new step will be 1% * 2 = 2%. The order will be placed: -1% + -2% = -3%.
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Step: 2% * 2 = 4%. Order: -3%+ -4% =-7%.
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Step: 4% * 2 = 8%. Order: -7%+ -8% =-15%.
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Step: 8% * 2 = 16%. Order: -15%+ -16% =-31%.
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…
Advanced settings
Don’t start deal(s) if the daily volume is less than
The bot will start a new deal ONLY if the pair on the selected exchange has 24h trading volume more than specified in this field.
For example, we create a bot with BTC_ALL pairs and set the number in this field to 500 BTC (it’s calculated in BTC for any type of pairs). In this case the bot will open the trades for only those pairs that will have 24h trading volume of no less than 500 BTC on the selected exchange.
Minimum price to open deal and Maximum price to open deal
The bot will only open a new deal if the current price is higher than the min price or lower than the max price. This setting is recommended for Single-pair bots and becomes useless for the Multi-pair bots.
Cooldown between deals
The bot won’t open a new trade until the specified amount of seconds is passed.
A Multi-pair bot has different timers for each pair.
Open deals & stop
The bot will stop running after opening the required number of deals. An empty value will disable this option.
The bot will count only opened trades and will ignore the number of completed/canceled trades. For example, is we put 10 in this field, bot will stop running right after opening the 10th deal, no matter how many deals were closed/canceled before.
If the bot is already active when the setting is enabled, only newly opened deals after that moment will be counted.
Simultaneous deals per same pair
Available for Multi-pair bots only.
A bot can open several deals with the same trading pair. By default, the bot is configured to open one deal per the same pair. When the bot receives a signal to open a new deal, but the deal with this pair already exists, the bot will ignore the signal. If you change the Simultaneous deals per same pair setting, the bot will open additional deals when it gets signals to start a new deal with the same pair.
Every deal on the same pair is just like any deal with other pairs. It means that deals on the same pair will affect the maximum deals limit (see above in the article). For example, you configured a bot to open a maximum of 3 active deals, and you set the simultaneous deals per the same pair to 3 too. If the bot opens 2 deals on, let’s say, ADA/USDT pair, it can open one more deal on either the same ADA/USDT pair or another pair. If the bot opens 3 deals on ADA/USDT pair, it won’t open any new deal on any pair until at least one of the active deals is closed.
Autoconvert to SmartTrade
After opening a trade on a DCA bot and executing a Base order, this feature will automatically convert every new trade into a SmartTrade keeping all the settings the same, except for the Safety orders – they will not be placed in the SmartTrade. After converting to ST the initial bot’s deal becomes canceled.
Important:
If the auto-convert function is enabled for the bot, then the “Max active deals” setting will be ignored – the DCA bot will automatically convert all deals to ST.
Thus, avoid turning on this setting with the “ASAP” deal start condition!
Close deal after timeout
Some traders like to open deals for a specific amount of time. For example, they open the trade at 13:30 each day, but they want the trade to close automatically, whether in profit or loss if it hasn’t reached the Take Profit target configured.
This can be useful if you have an automated signal to start new bot deals during times of peak trading volume, such as New York session times, for example.
The time can be specified in minutes, hours or days and the counter starts as soon as a new deal has started.
Assistant
When everything is set, you can view the bot’s “Assistant” window for concluding information on how much funds the bot will require and other useful information.
Assistant tab
Here the available balance is displayed and also the amount that the bot will need to function properly (including all averaging). There is also the maximum deviation of the price of the last safety order in percentage and the percentage of funds used by the bot:
Chart tab
It shows how evenly you use the funds with the bot and safety orders.
The green line represents the total amount of funds used in the deal after either Safety order is executed.
The blue line represents the Base and the Safety order sizes on each step.
Table tab
Clicking on the Table tab displays a detailed breakdown of each step. Here you can see exactly how much funds the bot will use in one trade, in accordance with the number of executed safety orders:
P.S. There is also one more DCA bots’ trades-related setting that you won’t find on the creating new DCA bot page. It’s called Active limit of DCA Bot deals:
This feature allows limiting the number of DCA bots’ active trades on the specific exchange. Like if you have a limited amount of funds on your balance but you have several bots running and you don’t want to limit the deals on each bot. So you can limit the number of active deals hear, no matter how many bots you have.
To find this setting you need to go to the My Exchanges page and click on the eye (👁️🗨️) icon to view the exchange’s information. Then you need to scroll all the way down to find this setting.
Click on Create Bot button
That’s it! After clicking on the Create Bot button, you will be prompted to Start the bot or just Close the window and review the bot’s settings:
Either way, you will be forwarded to the page with all the information about your bot’s settings:
More information about this page you can find in this article:
Manage active DCA bots