Getting Started with ProfitTrailer: Things You Should Know

ProfitTrailer is a smart crypto trading bot – but it can be tough to get started.

I recently began using ProfitTrailer as a way to earn a percentage return on my holdings without worrying about trading myself. There is a learning curve associated with automated trading. There are a few things you should know when starting.

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Telegram group
Be sure to join the Telegram group if you can’t resolve your problem or want more information about settings.

Starting the program
Make sure you have Java 8 Runtime (not Java 9 Runtime) installed then double-click to run the included batch file ProfitTrailer.bat to get started.

Known issues
Check the wiki for known issues first. If you have an error related to Java, make sure you have Java 8 Runtime installed and ensure it is not Java 9 Runtime.

Latest releases
The latest release can and the changelogs can be found on the Github page.

Getting Started
Fill in your default_apiKey, default_apiSecret, trading_apiKey, and trading_apiSecret with the API keys you generated on the exchange website.
Fill in trading.exchange with whichever exchange you are using: BINANCE, BITTREX, or POLONIEX.
You can then start the bot to check if your license is working.
You will need to have a balance in your account and set ALL_trading_enabled = true in your pairs.configuration before the bot will start making trades.
Once your bot is working, you can modify the settings in the pairs, DCA, and indicator files without restarting the bot.

API Keys
You need to generate two API keys on the exchange website that you are using. These keys should have separate privileges: one should have permission to get trade information and the other should have permission to make trades. On the Binance exchange, it is not possible to remove permission to get trade information. It is also possible to use the same API key twice, but it is not recommended for performance reasons. There is a known issue with Bittrex API keys that creates a “invalid_signature” error – check the known issues on the wiki to resolve this problem.

Run up to four instances
You can run for different configurations with one license key at the same time. To do this, make a copy of the ProfitTrailer folder. This can be useful if you are trading on multiple exchanges, markets or you want to run different buy/sell strategies at the same time.

Recommended starting settings
The bot will work on its own with default settings. However, you will want to adjust your ALL_max_cost and ALL_min_buy_cost as mentioned below. It is also recommended to start with 5% of your balance as your ALL_max_cost value unless you plan to use DCA in which case it should be around 1-2% to avoid accumulating bags.

Settings vary by exchange
Pair settings vary by exchange. Binance uses the format ETHBTC, Poloniex uses ETH_BTC, and Bittrex uses ETH-BTC.

Specific pairs
Any setting in the pairs.configuration that starts with ALL_ can be configured per pair by changing ALL_ to the pair, ie. ETH_BTC.

Trade only specific pairs
You can enable trading only specified pairs by setting ALL_ENABLE_PAIRS = ETHBTC, LTCBTC, etc. You can disable certain pairs from trading with BTC_ETH_trading_enabled = false. It may be helpful to disable known pump and dump currencies with one of these techniques.

Stop losses
You can set stop losses on your coins with ALL_stop_loss_trigger. You can also set or disable a panic trigger on a specific pair with BTC_ETH_panic_sell.

Why are my coins in watch mode?
If you manually traded on your account, the bot will not sell these as it does not know the purchase price. You can set a coin to start trading manually by setting its purchase price in the pairs.configuration with BTC_ETH_bought_price.

Why has my bot not made any purchases? Why does my bot take so long to make purchases?
When the bot is considering a buy, it will show “true trailing” in the Pairs Log. It must meet your buy settings for a certain amount of time before the bot will buy them. You also have to have a balance above the ALL_max_cost or ALL_min_buy_cost. The bot will not purchase any new pairs if the combined amount from the Pairs Log and DCA Log are above your ALL_max_trading_pairs value. You can adjust these values in the pairs.configuration file. Ensure your bot is not in SOM (Sell Only Mode). This could be triggered due to your stop_loss trigger or your btc_price_rise_trigger.

The bot does not sell at a loss
By default, the bot does not ever sell at a loss unless you have set ALL_stop_loss_trigger to a non-zero value.

About DCA
Many users may take issue with the Dollar Cost Averaging settings. You can easily accumulate bags of unsold coins when using DCA as it essentially uses a "double-down" strategy to earn a profit when the price drops.

Sell Only Mode
It is possible to put your bot into sell only mode manually or only specific pairs with BTC_ETH_sell_only_mode = true.

Getting lowest fees
Bittrex charges 0.25% per trade which means 0.5% total on a buy/sell. Binance charges 0.1% per trade, but you can get half off those fees if you use BNB (not yet supported). You will have to enable this option on the Binance website.

Minimum purchases and accumulating dust
The exchanges have minimum purchase values in BTC. Bittrex requires a minimum trade value of 0.001 BTC. This means, after paying fees, the trade value will be too low for the exchange to accept if your ALL_max_cost or ALL_min_buy_cost are less than 0.00125. So you will be stuck holding “dust” below the minimum 0.001 BTC trade value until the bot purchases more of that pair. By default, ProfitTrailer hides dust from the you unless you set hideDust = false in configuration.properties.

Avoid dusting
Dust can be annoying, and if your bot is trading in a lot of different coins, you will accumulate lots and lots of sub-$4 dust values for different pairs. You can either set fillOrKill = true in the configuration or there is a Dust Killer Python script for Bittrex you could use.

Is my exchange account safe?
It is possible that your computer is compromised and the hacker steals your API keys. It is possible that the author has programmed PT to steal your keys however I find that unlikely. In either case, if you have configured your API keys properly, they cannot be used to withdraw funds from your account – only to check info and make trades. If you are worried about your computer getting hacked or the author stealing your account, it would be best to spend $5 a month on a VPS to run your software.