Futures trading bot

A futures trading bot runs your strategy on perpetual futures: it can go long or short, it can use leverage, and it follows your rules around the clock. That power comes with costs and risks that spot trading does not have, such as funding payments and liquidation. Algonney runs futures bots on USDT perpetual contracts with the same fixed safety rules as every other bot: a stop loss on the exchange for every position, a guard that is always on, and a liquidation check before every entry.

Exchanges and markets

Futures bots trade USDT perpetuals, the most common crypto futures contract: no expiry date, settled in USDT. The same strategy can also run on spot, and the spot vs futures page explains the differences.

Long, short or both

A strategy can trade long only, short only or both sides. For the short side you choose:

• Mirror: the platform builds the short rules from the long ones, so a breakout above resistance becomes a breakdown below support.
• Custom: you write the short entries, exits and stop loss yourself.

In one-way position mode a bot holds one position per symbol at a time. In hedge mode a long and a short can be open on the same symbol. Two bots never hold the same symbol on one account at the same time (in hedge mode, the same symbol and side).

Leverage

Leverage on Algonney never changes the size of a position. The size comes from your sizing method, for example a risk percent of the bot's allocation. Leverage only changes the margin the position uses and how close the liquidation price is. That keeps the risk of each trade tied to its stop loss, not to the leverage you choose.

Your plan sets the highest leverage you can choose:

The exchange may cap leverage lower for each symbol. Leverage, margin mode and position mode are set per exchange account and shared by all bots on it. A symbol with an open position keeps its setting until it is flat.

Liquidation is checked before every entry

Before a futures entry the platform estimates the liquidation price from the exchange's own margin tiers. The stop loss must sit inside that price with a safety buffer, or the trade is refused. The stop is placed on the exchange first, so it is meant to close the position well before the exchange would liquidate it. Backtests check liquidation on every bar in the same way.

Funding and fees

Perpetual contracts have no expiry. Instead, longs and shorts pay each other a funding rate at fixed times: when the rate is positive, longs pay shorts, and when it is negative, shorts pay longs. Funding can add up on trades that stay open for days. Backtests on USDT perpetuals apply funding at each funding time, along with the exchange's trading fees and slippage, so a strategy that only works before costs does not look better than it is. Each trade shows its fees and funding.

Paper first, then live

The path to a live futures bot has three steps:

1. Backtest the strategy on real history and test as the exchange you will trade on, with its fees and rules. See Backtesting.
2. Paper trade it with virtual USDT on live futures prices. A paper bot uses the same engine, sizing and guard as a live bot.
3. Go live from the paper bot. A readiness review checks the exchange account, the trade-only and IP-bound key, two-factor authentication, your risk limits, the allocation against your balance and that the stop loss sits inside the liquidation price. You confirm, and only then does the bot trade real money. See Live trading.

The guard watches every position

The guard admits each entry only after the risk checks pass, places the stop loss first, moves trailing stops, checks orders with the exchange at regular intervals and closes a position whose stop loss cannot be confirmed. STOP ALL closes every open position in one action. Your daily loss limit and position caps apply to all bots of an account. See Crypto risk management.

Build the strategy by chat

Describe the futures strategy to Jarvis, the AI assistant: the timeframe, the entry rule, the stop loss, the take profit and the side. Jarvis builds the rules, checks them with the validator and shows them on a card before you save. The crypto strategy builder page explains how.

The bots guide in the docs covers bot settings step by step. Plan limits, including leverage and live bots, are on Plans and pricing.

Leverage magnifies losses as well as gains, and a futures position can lose more than its stop loss when the market gaps. Read the risk disclosure before you trade live.

Past results do not guarantee future returns.