Blackbird

[ManuManu]

Anyone ever tried or have any info on Blackbird ?
https://github.com/butor/blackbird

It looks like a bot that is using the price difference between two exchanges to get some revenues...

[askmike]

Yep! It places order on the assumption that prices between exchanges will converge at some point. I'm curious as to other people opinions about the bot. Has anyone tried it?

[Kromdore]

I had troubles getting it working, so we didn't try it. However the trading method and logic seems sound to me.

[Storm-E]

I read a report by some one that did use it.
He lost money because he didn't understand a few items in it.
But over all his take was it was a waste of money/coin as you had to spread your assets across at least 2 exchanges.
.
Found it...
http://honeybadgerofmoney.com/blackbirdarbbot/
have a read fro yourself.

John

[Kromdore]

I cant get it to build unfortunately

[xFFFFF]

On github is more stuff like this. Look for arbitrage bots.

Price is still changing and btc transfer need some time. Don't forget about this before use. Some exchanges like bitfinex has deposit fee. Bitmex has admins manual confirmation on windrawal so it's taking some time.

[ManuManu]

@xFFFF:
Actually, in the github home page, they explained that transfer time does not matter.
And, to be honest, I don't understand it at all !

"The strategy doesn't need to transfer funds (USD or BTC) between Bitcoin exchanges. The buy/sell and sell/buy trading activities are done in parallel on two different exchanges, independently. Advantage: no need to deal with transfer latency issues."

Actually, to earn fromt the different exchange, you need to link them in a way or another, don't you ? Like by transfering fund ??

So I just don't understand

---

Actually, the details are explained here :
https://github.com/butor/blackbird/issues/100

So they are right ( ok, it's logical they know their own soft ), there are no exchange between the exchanges.
They are buying and selling at the same time on the 2 exchanges, and earn from that...

I'm still curious how well it works !

[Kromdore]

I'll simplify what the theory behind the arbitrage strategy is, but I don't know exactly how Blackbird incorporates it.

Exchange A BTC is 10k
Exchange B btc is 10.1k

On both exchanges you have 5 btc and 50k in tether. On Exchange B you sell 1 btc, and on Exchange A you buy 1.01 btc. The theory is that you can capture the profits from arbitration with this method without transferring the funds across exchanges.

Hope this helps to make sense what it does.

[Fenryll]

Hi,

one month I am into crypto and 2 weeks assessing bots (gekko is the best one, congrats!):

My 2 cents about blackbird: the "market neutral" strategy is interesting, but it requires Exchanges allowing and exposing API to short, this is why I didn't have one running now.
But in a few words, it requires two exchanges, with arbitrage opportunities.

Simple explanation (even if "shorting" is counter intuitive for me)

You start with two exchanges, scanning for Coin X
Exchange A: 1000$
Exchange B: 1000$

Then you catch a difference, Coin X is valued 1000$ on Exchange A and 800$ on Exchange B -> arbitrage opportunity as Coin X is overvalued on A and undervalued on B

Exchange A: 

• short Coin X @1000$
  
• Temporary / blocked balance 2000$
  

Exchange B:

• buy Coin X @800$
  
• New balance 200$
  

Then A & B markets for Coin X align again @900$

Exchange A: 

• Pay for the short 900$
  
• New balance: 1100$
  

Exchange B:

• Sell Coin X @900$
  
• Balance 1100$
  

200$ profit... in theory, and also, it is market neutral as the long and short are covering each others.. fees for 4 operations are to be taken into account too..

[Kromdore]

I officially got Blackbird to work, ran it for two days. Didn't make a single trade, was always one or two seconds too late (it literally was checking every 3 seconds).

Its a bummer that it only works for btc/usd.