GDAX Tradingbot

An automated GDAX trading bot built in Python.

The bot uses a simple exponential moving average (EMA) crossover strategy to attempt to profit from short-term upwards trends in cryptocurrency. A buy/sell signal is triggered when the 5-period EMA and the 20-period EMA intercept. The bot uses the GDAX platform to buy/sell cryptocurrency, accessed via the official API.

The exit strategy of the bot is straightforward. Once a buy order has been fulfilled, the bot waits for either the price to change +40 basis points or for the EMAs to intercept. The first event to occur triggers the bot to sell the position.

The bot creates orders that only provide liquidity to the market and thus are market 'maker' orders. The significance of this is that GDAX currently charges 0% on fees for 'maker' orders¹.

The project uses Threads to perform separate functions:

• Grab live price, calculate EMAs and identify if a crossover has occurred
• Perform a trading action - buy/sell depending on crossover

As the bot runs, all prices and transactions are logged into separate CSV files.

Use at your own risk.

Please Note - As of Oct 2018, this project is no longer maintained

1: 01/2018 GDAX Fees

Getting Started

These instructions allow you to get running and customise the project.

Prerequisites

You will need a GDAX account and an API key. Create a config file (config.py) in the root directory with the following format:

API_KEY = ""
API_SECRET = ""
API_PASS = ""
API_URL = "https://api.gdax.com/" #Sandbox: https://api-public.sandbox.gdax.com

The project was built and tested with Python 3.6.4. To install the required packages, run the following:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Customisation

To customise the project you can edit the following variables, as shown in example.py:

LOOP_DURATION = 58.5 # Time period (in seconds)
MAX_LOOP_TIME = 8 * 60 * 60 # Max duration to run (in seconds)
QUOTE_CURRENCY = "BTC" # Cryptocurrency of choice
BASE_CURRENCY = "EUR" # Fiat currency of choice
CSV_PRICE = "price.csv" # Price CSV name
CSV_TRANSACTIONS = "transactions.csv" # Transaction CSV name

Authors

• Calum McGuicken

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License

Acknowledgments

• GDAX Official API Documentation
• 20-day/5-day EMA with Forex