Altrady's Crypto Base Scanner
Contents
What is CBS?
History
Subscriptions and Pricing
Success Rate
What triggers a CBS signal?
Why does the Frequency of Signals Vary?
Bots and exchanges
Connection
Bot Settings
Position size and Number of Positions
Position Size Percentage or Amount?
Minimum Order Size
Minimum volume
Quote Currency
Base currencies and Blacklists
A/B testing
Rescues
API
Is CBS the same as the Altrady Base Scanner?
CBS Monthly Reports
Filters
Win Rate
Signals by Day
Currency Based Stats
Exchange Based Stats
Algorithm Based Stats
Volume Based Stats
Win Rates by Date
Amount of Signals by Date
Pairs with Best and Worst Win Rate
Drops
DCA
The Crypto Base Scanner is a signal service originally based on the QFL trading method (see Glossary). Signals are sent when the price of a pair drops below a predefined Base by a predefined amount. Bases are drawn from price points where buyers have started to re-enter after a previous deep drop. The original theory was that if the price later goes lower than this, especially if due to a panic drop, it will quickly return due to buying pressure. This theory has been borne out both by individual manual traders, and the success rate of CBS signals.
While using a bot to trade signals is a relatively low-effort option, there is still some maintenance needed. Occasionally the trader will need to be hands-on, make decisions, and possibly do some manual trading. The reason is that, while the signals have an excellent success rate, it’s not 100%. There will be signals that don’t work out and where a decision needs to be made, either to cut losses at that point, or to manually “rescue” the position. The more hands-off the trader wishes to be, the higher the losses will be from these scenarios (in general).
Your settings will also affect how often you will need to manually intervene. Use of automated DCAs and/or SL usually means that less intervention is needed.
Also, after time many traders decide to customise their settings to suit their risk profile and trading style.
Originally CBS was a stand-alone product, and it can still be accessed stand-alone through cryptobasescanner.com. The creators went on to develop a fully-featured, mutli-exchange trading platform, to better help retail traders to succeed: Altrady.com. Altrady includes its own ### Base Scanner based on the same principles.
All Altrady subscriptions include access to the CBS signals, for trading with integrated bots (and soon on Altrady). 3Commas offers CBS signals through its Marketplace, however payments must be made there and an Altrady subscription won’t allow use of the CBS signals on 3Commas. 3Commas also offers free “QFL” signals, partly based on CBS. However, we have no information on how these differ or how they perform. You can find out more on Altrady's Discord server (3Commas channel).
A Signals-only subscription is available through Altrady or CryptoBaseScanner. If you have a log in for cryptobasescanner.com and wish to log into Altrady.com, use the same email address and click “Forgot password” to set up an Altrady account and log in.
Each month, a summary of the signals sent and the results obtained is reported in the CBS Monthly Reports, available from the CBS website. These reports can be filtered by exchange, quote currency, algorithm, and volume using the dropdowns at the top.
See CBS Monthly Reports for details on the report.
The immediate trigger for a signal is the price cracks a base and falls below the median drop for that pair.
In addition, the market must also meet these criteria for a signal to be sent:
More than 1000 hrs history for the market
Success rate >=50%
Median drop for the pair >3%
Reach the median drop within the algorithm-based time frame.
See more about the Success Rate, Median Drop and Algorithms in the Glossary.
Signals are sent when the price of a pair drops enough to crack a base and reach the median drop.
In general, the prices of USDx pairs and other stable coin pairs drop when BTC/USD falls. Fast or sharp BTC decreases often trigger panic selling of Alt pairs, and their prices will decrease at a faster rate than BTC. When BTC stabilises, Altcoin prices also stabilise and recover, providing the chance to take some profit.
The prices of BTC pairs drop when BTC/USD rises--BTC is worth more, so less of it is needed to buy an Altcoin. Also, many traders will sell their Altcoins and buy BTC when the BTC price increases. Then when the BTC price stabilises, its pairs will also stabilise and often recover some ground as well. BTC pairs will also drop if there is a significant BTC fall leading many traders to move to stable coins.
Pairs of other Altcoins such as ETH, BNB, TRX are harder to predict. When the price of the quote currency increases, Altcoin pairs of that quote currency will decrease in value, since less of the quote currency is needed to buy the Altcoin. The movements of ETH, BNB etc. are partly correlated to BTC price. However, their timing can vary, especially during a bull market, or on the back of news.
Bots are listed here. The exchanges listed here for each bot might be out of date, so check the bot’s website for recent additions.
Altrady's Signal bot with CBS signals is now in Beta testing. Soon, you can have the best of all worlds in one place.
Algorithms: some bots allow you to choose an algorithm; on other bots you get all 3 algorithms. On most bots you can limit your positions to one per market, so it’s possible to avoid having multiple positions for the same market if you choose.
Some bots have a dedicated channel on the Altrady Discord server, for discussion of bot-related topics. At the time of writing, these bots have channels:
3Commas
Axion
Le Trader
Nefertiti
Zignaly
Use your CBS API key to link your bot account to the CBS signals.
Personal-use accounts are allowed up to 1000 CBS API requests per hour, which is plenty for trading with bots. You can see how many have been used and are remaining on the same page where to get your CBS API key:
In Altrady, you will find your CBS API key under Settings>Signals, Crypto Base Scanner API key
The key settings for your bot are:
Note that each bot may use a different method to calculate DCA entry price, and SL price. For example, Zignaly uses the average entry price at the time the DCA or Stop Loss is placed. And the SL is not entered to the OB until all DCAs have been completed.
Initial entry size is based on the DCA number and sizes listed here. If other DCA amounts are used, the initial position size will likely need to be adjusted.
Naturally, these two settings work together. The more positions you plan to have, the smaller the position size must be. When deciding on the number of simultaneous positions to allow for on your trading bot, it is a good idea to see how many days there were with 0, 1, 2 or more signals. You can assess this using the Monthly Reports and filtering for your exchange etc. Note that signal duration varies from hours to days.
The fewer concurrent positions you have, the more of your funds will be invested in positions at a given time, which increases returns. BUSD pairs on Binance might average 5 signals/day, but this ranges from 0 to 50/day. If you opt for 5 maximum concurrent positions, on the days where there is only one signal, 80% of your funds will be idle. However, the risk of having fewer positions is that occasionally a pair will tank and not recover. This can happen due to bad news, delisting, etc. or when the whole market crashes. Although the chances are low, fewer positions means that if you happen to catch a signal for one of these tanking pairs, your full position size could be invested in a pair that might not recover. This can wipe out a lot of previous profits all in one hit. If your total position size is 80% of your account and the pair drops 50%, you would lose 40% of your account.
Having more positions increases the chances of opening a position where this happens. However, at the same time it reduces the trader’s exposure (funds at risk) if it does happen. If you allow for 2 concurrent positions of 40% total position size each and one crashes 50%, the loss would be 20% of your account.
For each trader, the number of concurrent positions is an important decision to make, balancing risks and rewards and taking into account your own risk profile and trading style.
It is recommended that some funds be kept unallocated, and be available in case a position needs an extra DCA, or to be manually rescued (see below). This should be a minimum of 20% (fairly risky) and up to 50% (fairly safe).
Advantages of using Percentage:
. As your profits build, your position size increases without needing intervention
Note. Some bots base the position size on Available Funds (so once a position has been opened, the next position size will decrease). Other bots include your invested amounts (i.e. positions already started) in your total available funds.
Disadvantages of using Percentage:
If your profits increase quickly, as can happen, position sizes increase quickly as well which can lead to unforeseen issues. The main problem is that your trade sizes will be larger, and so your minimum volume should also increase to avoid being stuck with a large amount of a coin with low liquidity.
Whichever option you choose, it’s a good idea to reassess your position size, minimum volume and other settings periodically to ensure they are all aligned.
Most exchanges have minimum order requirements and these apply to bot trades as well. For example, the current minimum for a USDT pair on Binance (https://www.binance.com/en/trade-rule) is $10. If any orders entered by your bot are for amount less than that, the exchange will reject the order. Your bot may or may not send you an error message.
Keep in mind that allowing the exact minimum order amount will result in orders that are too small, since your order value will always be rounded down depending on the tick size for the pair.
Example 1.
BNB/USDT on Binance:
Minimum tick size (or step size) for BNB is .01
Minimum order size for all USDT pairs is USDT10
If the price of BNB is 321.33
The maximum order size would be 10 / 321.33 = 0.0311 BNB
Truncated down to the next tick size, the order amount would be 0.03 BNB
An order for .03 BNB at 312.33 costs USDT9.64, which is below the $10 minimum.
For this pair the minimum order size at that price would be 0.04, at a cost of USDT12.85!
Most pairs have smaller tick sizes than BNB, and if your initial position fails due to a “minimum amount” error, the position will be cancelled immediately and your bot will be ready to take a new trade.
Example 2.
REP/BTC has a tick size of 0.0000001
The minimum order size on Binance for BTC pairs is .0001
And the current price is 0.0004668.
If our order size is 0.0001 BTC, then we could buy 0.0001 / 0.0004668 = 0.21422450728 REP
Truncated to 7 decimal places is 0.2142245 REP
The order would be placed for 0.2142245 at a price of 0.0004668 and cost of 0.0000999, which is just under the minimum.
For this pair we’d need to allow at least 0.00011 to reach the minimum order size, and it will vary from one pair to another and from one exchange to another.
Example 3.
Minimum order size for USDT pairs is $10.
Order placed for maximum $20 ADA/USDT and filled for $19.56
With two TPs of 50% each, at 2% and 4%, the order sizes for the TPs would be:
TP1: 0.5 * 19.56 * 1.02 = 9.9756 ✘
TP2: 0.5 * 19.56 * 1.04 = 10.1712 ✔
There are two things related to volume. One is making sure that there is enough volume so that you don't get stuck with coins. 100x your position size allows for approx 4x the volume of your position each hour, which is usually enough to sell in a reasonable time frame.
However, most bots use 24hr volume to determine whether a pair meets your volume criteria. And sometimes volume for a micro-cap pair will spike temporarily due to a pump and dump or other short-term phenomena. To avoid these, it is a good idea to use a minimum volume of 5 BTC, and 200x to 500x your position size is safer.
The other thing about volume is that pairs with more volume (like BTC/USD, ETH/USD) are not as volatile as pairs with small volume. Usually the median drop will be smaller, TPs will be less, and they break fewer bases, so there are fewer signals. So a very high minimum volume is not a good idea unless you need it to cater for your position size.
On most bots you will have the same choice of quote currencies as you have on the relevant exchange. Factors to consider when choosing one or more quote currencies:
which currency/s do you wish to accumulate?
which has the most signals and best success rates for the exchanges you will be using?
does the success rate vary depending on the market direction? And does the change in value of the quote currency cancel out the gains or add to them? For example:
*when the BTC price increases a lot, there will be many signals for BTC pairs
these might take longer than usual to recover (unless a lower TP is used), resulting in fewer positions, but the increase in BTC price can be added to the amount of BTC gained to assess total profit (i.e. profit valued in USD or EUR).
Leveraged tokens
All leveraged tokens are currently excluded from the CBS signals.
Low sat pairs and Entry time limit
For pairs with prices less than approximately 100 sats, orders are often queued at each price, waiting to be filled. And the fill time can be quite long. For this reason, some people choose not to trade low sat pairs with signals. The Altrady Signal Bot offers Minimum and Maximum price settings, which can be used to exclude these markets. Some other bots offer ways to blacklist markets (this would require entering each market name).
Alternatively, some bots offer a setting for an Entry Time Limit. Once the order is placed, if it does not fill in this time period, it will be cancelled and the bot can take a new signal. It is personal choice whether you wish to wait for orders to be filled, and how long you are prepared to wait.
An Entry Time Limit will also cancel your order in the situation where the price dropped and bounced quickly, and was already above your buy price when the order was placed. In most cases, the price won’t drop again at all, or for quite some time. Again, an Entry Time Limit allows the trader to opt out of a position that takes too long to fill, on the premise that if it’s not filled in X minutes, it’s unlikely to fill at all.
Delistings
Most crypto traders would have seen at least one pair or coin nose-dive into oblivion due to bad news, delisting from a major exchange, or price manipulation. Many of these drops come out of the blue. Others are precipitated by a delisting announcement. Altrady attempts to block CBS signals for delisted pairs, since these have a low probability of returning to their base.
However, not all delistings will be avoided, and bad news can still cause one or more pairs to dump heavily and quickly. It is probably unavoidable for a trader to catch some of these signals. And it is worth considering how much you would be likely to lose on one of these positions. And therefore what steps are worth implementing to avoid or minimise the loss. Possibilities include:
. a deep Stop Loss
. regular checking of positions and news for a coin that is dipping more than normal
. more concurrent positions (with smaller position sizes)
. keeping a lot of funds in reserve for rescues
. Use small TPs, to take advantage of any leveling off
In most bots you can create multiple scenarios which can be used over time to easily compare strategies, for example different number or levels of DCAs, and of concurrent positions. Keep in mind that every month will vary, so it’s unwise to fit your strategy to closely to the a particular set of data (over-fitting). For example a SL of 21.2% might have been perfect for July 2020, but the next month it might be a poor choice. In general terms, the longer the time frame you can test, and the more varied the market conditions (bull, bear, sideways market). the better your ability to work out a strategy that works pretty well in most markets.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Most bot/signal combinations are not completely hands-off and CBS is no exception. While the success rate for the signals is high it is not 100%. There will be times when the price drops and stays down for some time, using up all allocated DCAs.
Whether you decide to manually intervene is a personal choice. In general, intervening should increase your profits by allowing you to exit a trade sooner than otherwise. That frees up your funds for signals again.
The simplest form of intervention is to add an extra DCA. It is worth considering the timing for this. If the market is still falling, a DCA at a lower level will be of greater value. Keep in mind that the Quote currency of the pair can make a difference too. If BTC is rising, BTC pairs will be falling. They won’t stabilise or rise again until:
BTC retraces and/or
Alt coins recover and climb.
The same applies to ETH and BNB pairs, as well as pairs of other Alt coin quote currencies.
Stable coin pairs drop when BTC/USD drops, and usually at a faster rate. When BTC/USD stabilises, most Alt/USDx pairs will also stabilise and recover.
For more serious rescues--where you’ve run out of funds for DCAs, and you don’t want to sell your whole position at a loss--it can be necessary to sell part of your position at a loss to provide funds to rebuy lower. In general, buy low, sell high, often multiple times, to bring down the break-even price and allow you to exit in profit, or at least with no (or minimal) loss. Note that Altrady’s Break Even calculator tracks the current BE price--the price at which if you sold your remaining coins, the position would be at net zero--greatly facilitating position rescues.
Please also see our Youtube channel where CryptoTradingDev from Altrady discusses the trades he has made using the CBS signals, and how he has rescued the occasional position that has taken longer to recover than one might prefer.
Market Crashes
Even more tricky to deal with are complete market crashes and large retraces. These scenarios happen in the crypto world:
. a bull run with large retraces for BTC/USD and hence even larger dips for Altcoins. And Altcoins usually recover more slowly than BTC. This happened 3-4 times in the bull run of 2017
. the end of a bull run, with a blow-off top and crash, like Jan 2018. Most altcoins lost 95% of their value and have not yet recovered to those levels
. Bad news that affects stock markets, such as March 2020 with the “COVID drop”, when BTC/USD went from $8000 to $3780 (-43%) in 8 hours and took 3 months to recover. Altcoins dropped as much or more, and most took longer to recover.
For programmers, Altrady provides access to an API for receiving signals, similar to CBS. The Trading Plan and above include API access for personal use. For commercial use please ask Altrady Support.
The available documentation is here.
An in-built Base Scanner (using the same algorithms) as CBS is included in Altrady's Essential and Premium plans. This can be used completely manually, or to send notifications of base cracks for manual and semi-automated trading.
Bases are drawn on the charts and shown as Uncracked, Cracked, or Respected.
Details about each base, including the median drop and bounce, are also available.
The Base Scanner can be used for manual trading on all exchanges supported by Altrady.
The trader can choose to be notified when a base is cracked and meets their selected criteria.
More information here and here and
Glossary for the Base Scanner and Base Trading.
Settings added for the Base Scanner in Altrady do not affect your CBS signals or settings. The two are completely separate.
CBS Reports can be found here: http://cryptobasescanner.com#reports
There is one report for each month, covering signals sent in that month. The reports are usually ready around the 10th of the following month which allows positions to complete where possible.
Entry price:
CBS signals are sent when the Median Drop is reached, and throughout the report the median drop is the assumed entry price.
When trading with a bot, it is possible that the entry was not filled at all if the drop was very fast and the order was placed after the price had retraced.
Also, for some pairs (especially low-sat BTC pairs) the queue at each price can be large and orders take time to fill. In a real scenario, an order at that price may or may not fill before the price retraces.
On some bots, and Entry order price expiration time can be entered and if this is used, the entry order would be cancelled at that time, if it is not yet filled.
DCAs: Unless otherwise specified, DCAs are at -4%, -8% and -12% and at each DCA the current position size is doubled.
The first entry is at the stated level (median drop). DCAs are based on the average entry price. Actual entry prices, relative to the first entry, are as shown below:
Sorting the tables
Click a column header to sort by that column. Toggle between Ascending (from low to high) and Descending (from high to low).
At the top of the report are four filters that can be applied to the data in the report:
Exchange: All of the exchanges for which signals are available
Algorithm: The three CBS/Altrady algorithms for which signals are sent
Currency: Quote currency)
Volume: 24 hour volume for the market at the time of the signal?
The reports can be used to compare exchanges, quote currencies and algorithms.
And once a trader has narrowed down which of those to focus on, the reports are useful for deciding which settings to use (as discussed above). Choose your filter values depending on what you are wanting to compare.
Date range: Next to the filters is the date range of the signals for the report.
It is possible to select a different month (1st of one month to 1st next month). But not multiple months, or periods starting or ending on dates other than 1st.
Shows the percentage of signals that reached at least +1%, +2% or +3% profit, 3% Win Rate with DCA
Total signals: A count of the signals sent in the selected month.
+1%: Signals that reached 1% profit with no DCAs.
+2%: Signals that reached 2% profit with no DCAs.
+3%: Signals that reached 3% profit with no DCAs.
3% Win rate with DCA: assumes that DCA/s were applied if the price reached them.
Target Profit: The signals include a suggested profit percentage (half median drop) that some bots allow the trader to use. Target Profit is the mean gross profit rate across signals.
Target TP Win Rate: Signals that reached the Target Profit sent with the signal (as above) with no DCAs.
While the average number of signals per day is interesting, the variation between days is more useful for deciding settings, such as number of concurrent positions. Once the trader has decided which exchange, quote currency, algorithm and volume they will be using, it is a good idea to count the number of days for that combination with zero, 1, 2, 3 etc. signals. There is little point in allowing for a high number of concurrent positions if there are many days each month with only a few signals if you are planning for quick positions.
Dates with no signals are skipped on the chart, so look for missing dates to count the number of days with no signals.
This section is most useful for comparing currencies for a single exchange and algorithm, after filtering for your volume requirements.
Currency: the quote currency
Signals: a count of the number of signals for the month
WR 1%: Signals that reached 1% profit with no DCAs.
WR 2%: Signals that reached 2% profit with no DCAs. Includes signals that reached 1% profit.
WR 3%: Signals that reached 3% profit with no DCAs. Includes signals that reached 2% profit.
Target TP% Signals that reached the Profit percentage in the signal. Includes signals that reached 1% profit (since the Target TP is always >= 1.5%). This figure would also include some signals that reached 2% or 3%, where the Target TP was greater than 2% or 3%.
Signals/day: The mean average number of signals each day
Avg. Drop: The mean average of the median drops for each pair at the time of the signal.
The Pie Chart offers a visual representation of the total number of signals during the month for each quote currency.
This section is useful for comparing exchanges for a single currency and algorithm, filtered for your volume requirements.
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
This section is useful for comparing algorithms for a single exchange and currency, filtered for your volume requirements.
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
Use this table to determine how many signals might be available at different volume levels. This will vary between exchanges and quote currencies. The table can be sorted by each column. Click once to sort Descending (Largest to smallest) and twice to sort Ascending (smallest to largest).
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
This chart compares the win rate for each day of the month. In this case, the lower bound is .6 (60%) and the upper bound is 1 (100%). The blue line shows the proportion of signals that reached TP of 1%. Naturally this line is the highest on the graph. The orange line (3%) includes all signals that reached TP of 1% and 2% as well as 3%.
It is useful to look at the Win Rates by date for a single quote currency in conjunction with the changes in BTC price during the month, as shown in the chart immediately below. Signals for each quote currency are strongly related to BTC price movements in different ways.
This chart is broken down by quote currency and is most useful when comparing quote currencies for a single exchange. Exchanges will vary in which quote currencies they offer and which have the most pairs and therefore the most signals.
The left side is sorted by win Rate 1%, descending (highest to lowest). The right side is sorted by the same column but ascending (lowest to highest), so these pairs were the worst performers during the month.
Click the 3 dot menu top right for sorting options and rest, or click a column heading to sort.
Mouse over the table to see scroll bars and scroll down if needed.
The table shown is for Binance USDT pairs. The example outlined: USDT-BADGER, had 3 signals of which only 1 was successful (33%) and reached 3% TP. The average Drop for this pair was -8.7%.
If a certain pair has a poor win rate over a few months, it can be worth excluding (blacklisting). It is wise to assess how leveraged tokens perform, especially short tokens such as FILDOWN (outlined in green). They often have large average drops, and their success rate can vary a lot from month to month.
The following chart shows how far the price initially dropped below the initial signal price, and for each drop level, how many recovered to make a profit of 3% (green bars) and how many did not make a 3% profit (red bars).
If the price dropped, bounced and then dropped again, only the first drop is recorded here (due to limits on data).
For this table, no DCAs are assumed.
In general, the smaller the drop below the initial signal price, the higher the chance of profit, although this depends on whether DCAs are used.
Mouse over the bars for details.
At -10% drop below the signal price (outlined), 41 signals made 3% profit and 6 did not.
At <-50% drop, 23 made 3% profit and 32 did not reach 3% profit.
The final table offers a comparison of success rates for two DCA strategies:
Reports up to February 2022: Strategy 1: -4%, -8% and -12% and Strategy 2: -5%, -10% and -15% (with percentages relative to the average entry price at the time). In both cases the DCAs double the current position.
Reports from March 2022: Strategy 1: -5%, -10% and -15% and Strategy 2: -6%, -12% and -20% (the percentages are relative to the initial entry price). In both cases the DCAs double the current position.
After accounting for the different calculation methods, the DCAs used in each of these scenarios are roughly equivalent.
The top area of the DCA section provides a summary for the scenario (i.e. filters selected), with total number of signals and success rate with no DCAs.
Next is a comparison of Strategy 1 with Strategy 2 (see table above). The total Signals (469) are assessed to determine which reached each level (No DCA; DCA1; DCA2; DCA3).
Each signal is also assessed as to whether it returns to >3% above the average entry price (3% profit).
For Strategy 1, 205 of the 469 signals did not reach DCA 1 (-4%). Of those 204 reached 3% profit.
110 signals reached DCA3 (having filled DCA1 and DCA2). OF these 87 (79.1%) reached 3% profit by the time the report was compiled.
224 (87 + 59 + 78) signals reached one or more DCAs and reached 3% profit.
40 (33 + 3 + 4) signals reached one or more DCAs and did not reach 3% profit.
Of the 264 signals that reached one or more DCAs, 84.8% reached 3% profit.
The number that did not reach 3% profit after reaching DCA3 is much higher than the signals that reached DCA1 or DCA2.
In general, the results are very similar for Strategy 1 and Strategy 2.
As would be expected for Strategy 2 with slightly deeper DCAs, a few more signals did not reach DCA1.
Related Topics:
Glossary for the Base Scanner and Base Trading
Altrady's Signal Bot (draft documentation)
Understanding the "Bases" Widget of Altrady
Base Info widget
Video: CBS Trading with Altrady and bots
Videos: CryptoTradingDev's YouTube channel all about CBS signals and managing Bot positions
What is CBS?
History
Subscriptions and Pricing
Success Rate
What triggers a CBS signal?
Why does the Frequency of Signals Vary?
Bots and exchanges
Connection
Bot Settings
Position size and Number of Positions
Position Size Percentage or Amount?
Minimum Order Size
Minimum volume
Quote Currency
Base currencies and Blacklists
A/B testing
Rescues
API
Is CBS the same as the Altrady Base Scanner?
CBS Monthly Reports
Filters
Win Rate
Signals by Day
Currency Based Stats
Exchange Based Stats
Algorithm Based Stats
Volume Based Stats
Win Rates by Date
Amount of Signals by Date
Pairs with Best and Worst Win Rate
Drops
DCA
What is CBS?
The Crypto Base Scanner is a signal service originally based on the QFL trading method (see Glossary). Signals are sent when the price of a pair drops below a predefined Base by a predefined amount. Bases are drawn from price points where buyers have started to re-enter after a previous deep drop. The original theory was that if the price later goes lower than this, especially if due to a panic drop, it will quickly return due to buying pressure. This theory has been borne out both by individual manual traders, and the success rate of CBS signals.
While using a bot to trade signals is a relatively low-effort option, there is still some maintenance needed. Occasionally the trader will need to be hands-on, make decisions, and possibly do some manual trading. The reason is that, while the signals have an excellent success rate, it’s not 100%. There will be signals that don’t work out and where a decision needs to be made, either to cut losses at that point, or to manually “rescue” the position. The more hands-off the trader wishes to be, the higher the losses will be from these scenarios (in general).
Your settings will also affect how often you will need to manually intervene. Use of automated DCAs and/or SL usually means that less intervention is needed.
Also, after time many traders decide to customise their settings to suit their risk profile and trading style.
History
Originally CBS was a stand-alone product, and it can still be accessed stand-alone through cryptobasescanner.com. The creators went on to develop a fully-featured, mutli-exchange trading platform, to better help retail traders to succeed: Altrady.com. Altrady includes its own ### Base Scanner based on the same principles.
Subscriptions and Pricing
All Altrady subscriptions include access to the CBS signals, for trading with integrated bots (and soon on Altrady). 3Commas offers CBS signals through its Marketplace, however payments must be made there and an Altrady subscription won’t allow use of the CBS signals on 3Commas. 3Commas also offers free “QFL” signals, partly based on CBS. However, we have no information on how these differ or how they perform. You can find out more on Altrady's Discord server (3Commas channel).
A Signals-only subscription is available through Altrady or CryptoBaseScanner. If you have a log in for cryptobasescanner.com and wish to log into Altrady.com, use the same email address and click “Forgot password” to set up an Altrady account and log in.
Success Rate
Each month, a summary of the signals sent and the results obtained is reported in the CBS Monthly Reports, available from the CBS website. These reports can be filtered by exchange, quote currency, algorithm, and volume using the dropdowns at the top.
See CBS Monthly Reports for details on the report.
What triggers a CBS signal?
The immediate trigger for a signal is the price cracks a base and falls below the median drop for that pair.
In addition, the market must also meet these criteria for a signal to be sent:
More than 1000 hrs history for the market
Success rate >=50%
Median drop for the pair >3%
Reach the median drop within the algorithm-based time frame.
See more about the Success Rate, Median Drop and Algorithms in the Glossary.
Why does the Frequency of Signals Vary?
Signals are sent when the price of a pair drops enough to crack a base and reach the median drop.
In general, the prices of USDx pairs and other stable coin pairs drop when BTC/USD falls. Fast or sharp BTC decreases often trigger panic selling of Alt pairs, and their prices will decrease at a faster rate than BTC. When BTC stabilises, Altcoin prices also stabilise and recover, providing the chance to take some profit.
The prices of BTC pairs drop when BTC/USD rises--BTC is worth more, so less of it is needed to buy an Altcoin. Also, many traders will sell their Altcoins and buy BTC when the BTC price increases. Then when the BTC price stabilises, its pairs will also stabilise and often recover some ground as well. BTC pairs will also drop if there is a significant BTC fall leading many traders to move to stable coins.
Pairs of other Altcoins such as ETH, BNB, TRX are harder to predict. When the price of the quote currency increases, Altcoin pairs of that quote currency will decrease in value, since less of the quote currency is needed to buy the Altcoin. The movements of ETH, BNB etc. are partly correlated to BTC price. However, their timing can vary, especially during a bull market, or on the back of news.
Bots and exchanges
Bots are listed here. The exchanges listed here for each bot might be out of date, so check the bot’s website for recent additions.
Altrady's Signal bot with CBS signals is now in Beta testing. Soon, you can have the best of all worlds in one place.
Algorithms: some bots allow you to choose an algorithm; on other bots you get all 3 algorithms. On most bots you can limit your positions to one per market, so it’s possible to avoid having multiple positions for the same market if you choose.
Some bots have a dedicated channel on the Altrady Discord server, for discussion of bot-related topics. At the time of writing, these bots have channels:
3Commas
Axion
Le Trader
Nefertiti
Zignaly
Connection
Use your CBS API key to link your bot account to the CBS signals.
Personal-use accounts are allowed up to 1000 CBS API requests per hour, which is plenty for trading with bots. You can see how many have been used and are remaining on the same page where to get your CBS API key:
In Altrady, you will find your CBS API key under Settings>Signals, Crypto Base Scanner API key
Bot Settings
The key settings for your bot are:
Note that each bot may use a different method to calculate DCA entry price, and SL price. For example, Zignaly uses the average entry price at the time the DCA or Stop Loss is placed. And the SL is not entered to the OB until all DCAs have been completed.
Initial entry size is based on the DCA number and sizes listed here. If other DCA amounts are used, the initial position size will likely need to be adjusted.
Position size and Number of Positions
Naturally, these two settings work together. The more positions you plan to have, the smaller the position size must be. When deciding on the number of simultaneous positions to allow for on your trading bot, it is a good idea to see how many days there were with 0, 1, 2 or more signals. You can assess this using the Monthly Reports and filtering for your exchange etc. Note that signal duration varies from hours to days.
The fewer concurrent positions you have, the more of your funds will be invested in positions at a given time, which increases returns. BUSD pairs on Binance might average 5 signals/day, but this ranges from 0 to 50/day. If you opt for 5 maximum concurrent positions, on the days where there is only one signal, 80% of your funds will be idle. However, the risk of having fewer positions is that occasionally a pair will tank and not recover. This can happen due to bad news, delisting, etc. or when the whole market crashes. Although the chances are low, fewer positions means that if you happen to catch a signal for one of these tanking pairs, your full position size could be invested in a pair that might not recover. This can wipe out a lot of previous profits all in one hit. If your total position size is 80% of your account and the pair drops 50%, you would lose 40% of your account.
Having more positions increases the chances of opening a position where this happens. However, at the same time it reduces the trader’s exposure (funds at risk) if it does happen. If you allow for 2 concurrent positions of 40% total position size each and one crashes 50%, the loss would be 20% of your account.
For each trader, the number of concurrent positions is an important decision to make, balancing risks and rewards and taking into account your own risk profile and trading style.
It is recommended that some funds be kept unallocated, and be available in case a position needs an extra DCA, or to be manually rescued (see below). This should be a minimum of 20% (fairly risky) and up to 50% (fairly safe).
Position Size Percentage or Amount?
Advantages of using Percentage:
. As your profits build, your position size increases without needing intervention
Note. Some bots base the position size on Available Funds (so once a position has been opened, the next position size will decrease). Other bots include your invested amounts (i.e. positions already started) in your total available funds.
Disadvantages of using Percentage:
If your profits increase quickly, as can happen, position sizes increase quickly as well which can lead to unforeseen issues. The main problem is that your trade sizes will be larger, and so your minimum volume should also increase to avoid being stuck with a large amount of a coin with low liquidity.
Whichever option you choose, it’s a good idea to reassess your position size, minimum volume and other settings periodically to ensure they are all aligned.
Minimum Order Size
Most exchanges have minimum order requirements and these apply to bot trades as well. For example, the current minimum for a USDT pair on Binance (https://www.binance.com/en/trade-rule) is $10. If any orders entered by your bot are for amount less than that, the exchange will reject the order. Your bot may or may not send you an error message.
Keep in mind that allowing the exact minimum order amount will result in orders that are too small, since your order value will always be rounded down depending on the tick size for the pair.
Example 1.
BNB/USDT on Binance:
Minimum tick size (or step size) for BNB is .01
Minimum order size for all USDT pairs is USDT10
If the price of BNB is 321.33
The maximum order size would be 10 / 321.33 = 0.0311 BNB
Truncated down to the next tick size, the order amount would be 0.03 BNB
An order for .03 BNB at 312.33 costs USDT9.64, which is below the $10 minimum.
For this pair the minimum order size at that price would be 0.04, at a cost of USDT12.85!
Most pairs have smaller tick sizes than BNB, and if your initial position fails due to a “minimum amount” error, the position will be cancelled immediately and your bot will be ready to take a new trade.
Example 2.
REP/BTC has a tick size of 0.0000001
The minimum order size on Binance for BTC pairs is .0001
And the current price is 0.0004668.
If our order size is 0.0001 BTC, then we could buy 0.0001 / 0.0004668 = 0.21422450728 REP
Truncated to 7 decimal places is 0.2142245 REP
The order would be placed for 0.2142245 at a price of 0.0004668 and cost of 0.0000999, which is just under the minimum.
For this pair we’d need to allow at least 0.00011 to reach the minimum order size, and it will vary from one pair to another and from one exchange to another.
Example 3.
Minimum order size for USDT pairs is $10.
Order placed for maximum $20 ADA/USDT and filled for $19.56
With two TPs of 50% each, at 2% and 4%, the order sizes for the TPs would be:
TP1: 0.5 * 19.56 * 1.02 = 9.9756 ✘
TP2: 0.5 * 19.56 * 1.04 = 10.1712 ✔
Minimum volume
There are two things related to volume. One is making sure that there is enough volume so that you don't get stuck with coins. 100x your position size allows for approx 4x the volume of your position each hour, which is usually enough to sell in a reasonable time frame.
However, most bots use 24hr volume to determine whether a pair meets your volume criteria. And sometimes volume for a micro-cap pair will spike temporarily due to a pump and dump or other short-term phenomena. To avoid these, it is a good idea to use a minimum volume of 5 BTC, and 200x to 500x your position size is safer.
The other thing about volume is that pairs with more volume (like BTC/USD, ETH/USD) are not as volatile as pairs with small volume. Usually the median drop will be smaller, TPs will be less, and they break fewer bases, so there are fewer signals. So a very high minimum volume is not a good idea unless you need it to cater for your position size.
Quote Currency
On most bots you will have the same choice of quote currencies as you have on the relevant exchange. Factors to consider when choosing one or more quote currencies:
which currency/s do you wish to accumulate?
which has the most signals and best success rates for the exchanges you will be using?
does the success rate vary depending on the market direction? And does the change in value of the quote currency cancel out the gains or add to them? For example:
*when the BTC price increases a lot, there will be many signals for BTC pairs
these might take longer than usual to recover (unless a lower TP is used), resulting in fewer positions, but the increase in BTC price can be added to the amount of BTC gained to assess total profit (i.e. profit valued in USD or EUR).
Base currencies and Blacklists
Leveraged tokens
All leveraged tokens are currently excluded from the CBS signals.
Low sat pairs and Entry time limit
For pairs with prices less than approximately 100 sats, orders are often queued at each price, waiting to be filled. And the fill time can be quite long. For this reason, some people choose not to trade low sat pairs with signals. The Altrady Signal Bot offers Minimum and Maximum price settings, which can be used to exclude these markets. Some other bots offer ways to blacklist markets (this would require entering each market name).
Alternatively, some bots offer a setting for an Entry Time Limit. Once the order is placed, if it does not fill in this time period, it will be cancelled and the bot can take a new signal. It is personal choice whether you wish to wait for orders to be filled, and how long you are prepared to wait.
An Entry Time Limit will also cancel your order in the situation where the price dropped and bounced quickly, and was already above your buy price when the order was placed. In most cases, the price won’t drop again at all, or for quite some time. Again, an Entry Time Limit allows the trader to opt out of a position that takes too long to fill, on the premise that if it’s not filled in X minutes, it’s unlikely to fill at all.
Delistings
Most crypto traders would have seen at least one pair or coin nose-dive into oblivion due to bad news, delisting from a major exchange, or price manipulation. Many of these drops come out of the blue. Others are precipitated by a delisting announcement. Altrady attempts to block CBS signals for delisted pairs, since these have a low probability of returning to their base.
However, not all delistings will be avoided, and bad news can still cause one or more pairs to dump heavily and quickly. It is probably unavoidable for a trader to catch some of these signals. And it is worth considering how much you would be likely to lose on one of these positions. And therefore what steps are worth implementing to avoid or minimise the loss. Possibilities include:
. a deep Stop Loss
. regular checking of positions and news for a coin that is dipping more than normal
. more concurrent positions (with smaller position sizes)
. keeping a lot of funds in reserve for rescues
. Use small TPs, to take advantage of any leveling off
A/B testing
In most bots you can create multiple scenarios which can be used over time to easily compare strategies, for example different number or levels of DCAs, and of concurrent positions. Keep in mind that every month will vary, so it’s unwise to fit your strategy to closely to the a particular set of data (over-fitting). For example a SL of 21.2% might have been perfect for July 2020, but the next month it might be a poor choice. In general terms, the longer the time frame you can test, and the more varied the market conditions (bull, bear, sideways market). the better your ability to work out a strategy that works pretty well in most markets.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Rescues
Most bot/signal combinations are not completely hands-off and CBS is no exception. While the success rate for the signals is high it is not 100%. There will be times when the price drops and stays down for some time, using up all allocated DCAs.
Whether you decide to manually intervene is a personal choice. In general, intervening should increase your profits by allowing you to exit a trade sooner than otherwise. That frees up your funds for signals again.
The simplest form of intervention is to add an extra DCA. It is worth considering the timing for this. If the market is still falling, a DCA at a lower level will be of greater value. Keep in mind that the Quote currency of the pair can make a difference too. If BTC is rising, BTC pairs will be falling. They won’t stabilise or rise again until:
BTC retraces and/or
Alt coins recover and climb.
The same applies to ETH and BNB pairs, as well as pairs of other Alt coin quote currencies.
Stable coin pairs drop when BTC/USD drops, and usually at a faster rate. When BTC/USD stabilises, most Alt/USDx pairs will also stabilise and recover.
For more serious rescues--where you’ve run out of funds for DCAs, and you don’t want to sell your whole position at a loss--it can be necessary to sell part of your position at a loss to provide funds to rebuy lower. In general, buy low, sell high, often multiple times, to bring down the break-even price and allow you to exit in profit, or at least with no (or minimal) loss. Note that Altrady’s Break Even calculator tracks the current BE price--the price at which if you sold your remaining coins, the position would be at net zero--greatly facilitating position rescues.
Please also see our Youtube channel where CryptoTradingDev from Altrady discusses the trades he has made using the CBS signals, and how he has rescued the occasional position that has taken longer to recover than one might prefer.
Market Crashes
Even more tricky to deal with are complete market crashes and large retraces. These scenarios happen in the crypto world:
. a bull run with large retraces for BTC/USD and hence even larger dips for Altcoins. And Altcoins usually recover more slowly than BTC. This happened 3-4 times in the bull run of 2017
. the end of a bull run, with a blow-off top and crash, like Jan 2018. Most altcoins lost 95% of their value and have not yet recovered to those levels
. Bad news that affects stock markets, such as March 2020 with the “COVID drop”, when BTC/USD went from $8000 to $3780 (-43%) in 8 hours and took 3 months to recover. Altcoins dropped as much or more, and most took longer to recover.
API
For programmers, Altrady provides access to an API for receiving signals, similar to CBS. The Trading Plan and above include API access for personal use. For commercial use please ask Altrady Support.
The available documentation is here.
Is CBS the same as the Altrady Base Scanner?
An in-built Base Scanner (using the same algorithms) as CBS is included in Altrady's Essential and Premium plans. This can be used completely manually, or to send notifications of base cracks for manual and semi-automated trading.
Bases are drawn on the charts and shown as Uncracked, Cracked, or Respected.
Details about each base, including the median drop and bounce, are also available.
The Base Scanner can be used for manual trading on all exchanges supported by Altrady.
The trader can choose to be notified when a base is cracked and meets their selected criteria.
More information here and here and
Glossary for the Base Scanner and Base Trading.
Settings added for the Base Scanner in Altrady do not affect your CBS signals or settings. The two are completely separate.
CBS Monthly Reports
CBS Reports can be found here: http://cryptobasescanner.com#reports
There is one report for each month, covering signals sent in that month. The reports are usually ready around the 10th of the following month which allows positions to complete where possible.
Entry price:
CBS signals are sent when the Median Drop is reached, and throughout the report the median drop is the assumed entry price.
When trading with a bot, it is possible that the entry was not filled at all if the drop was very fast and the order was placed after the price had retraced.
Also, for some pairs (especially low-sat BTC pairs) the queue at each price can be large and orders take time to fill. In a real scenario, an order at that price may or may not fill before the price retraces.
On some bots, and Entry order price expiration time can be entered and if this is used, the entry order would be cancelled at that time, if it is not yet filled.
DCAs: Unless otherwise specified, DCAs are at -4%, -8% and -12% and at each DCA the current position size is doubled.
The first entry is at the stated level (median drop). DCAs are based on the average entry price. Actual entry prices, relative to the first entry, are as shown below:
Sorting the tables
Click a column header to sort by that column. Toggle between Ascending (from low to high) and Descending (from high to low).
Filters
At the top of the report are four filters that can be applied to the data in the report:
Exchange: All of the exchanges for which signals are available
Algorithm: The three CBS/Altrady algorithms for which signals are sent
Currency: Quote currency)
Volume: 24 hour volume for the market at the time of the signal?
The reports can be used to compare exchanges, quote currencies and algorithms.
And once a trader has narrowed down which of those to focus on, the reports are useful for deciding which settings to use (as discussed above). Choose your filter values depending on what you are wanting to compare.
Date range: Next to the filters is the date range of the signals for the report.
It is possible to select a different month (1st of one month to 1st next month). But not multiple months, or periods starting or ending on dates other than 1st.
Win Rate
Shows the percentage of signals that reached at least +1%, +2% or +3% profit, 3% Win Rate with DCA
Total signals: A count of the signals sent in the selected month.
+1%: Signals that reached 1% profit with no DCAs.
+2%: Signals that reached 2% profit with no DCAs.
+3%: Signals that reached 3% profit with no DCAs.
3% Win rate with DCA: assumes that DCA/s were applied if the price reached them.
Target Profit: The signals include a suggested profit percentage (half median drop) that some bots allow the trader to use. Target Profit is the mean gross profit rate across signals.
Target TP Win Rate: Signals that reached the Target Profit sent with the signal (as above) with no DCAs.
Signals by Day
While the average number of signals per day is interesting, the variation between days is more useful for deciding settings, such as number of concurrent positions. Once the trader has decided which exchange, quote currency, algorithm and volume they will be using, it is a good idea to count the number of days for that combination with zero, 1, 2, 3 etc. signals. There is little point in allowing for a high number of concurrent positions if there are many days each month with only a few signals if you are planning for quick positions.
Dates with no signals are skipped on the chart, so look for missing dates to count the number of days with no signals.
Currency Based Stats
This section is most useful for comparing currencies for a single exchange and algorithm, after filtering for your volume requirements.
Currency: the quote currency
Signals: a count of the number of signals for the month
WR 1%: Signals that reached 1% profit with no DCAs.
WR 2%: Signals that reached 2% profit with no DCAs. Includes signals that reached 1% profit.
WR 3%: Signals that reached 3% profit with no DCAs. Includes signals that reached 2% profit.
Target TP% Signals that reached the Profit percentage in the signal. Includes signals that reached 1% profit (since the Target TP is always >= 1.5%). This figure would also include some signals that reached 2% or 3%, where the Target TP was greater than 2% or 3%.
Signals/day: The mean average number of signals each day
Avg. Drop: The mean average of the median drops for each pair at the time of the signal.
The Pie Chart offers a visual representation of the total number of signals during the month for each quote currency.
Exchange Based Stats
This section is useful for comparing exchanges for a single currency and algorithm, filtered for your volume requirements.
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
Algorithm Based Stats
This section is useful for comparing algorithms for a single exchange and currency, filtered for your volume requirements.
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
Volume Based Stats
Use this table to determine how many signals might be available at different volume levels. This will vary between exchanges and quote currencies. The table can be sorted by each column. Click once to sort Descending (Largest to smallest) and twice to sort Ascending (smallest to largest).
The columns for this table are the same as for the previous section: Currency Based Stats
Win Rates by Date
This chart compares the win rate for each day of the month. In this case, the lower bound is .6 (60%) and the upper bound is 1 (100%). The blue line shows the proportion of signals that reached TP of 1%. Naturally this line is the highest on the graph. The orange line (3%) includes all signals that reached TP of 1% and 2% as well as 3%.
It is useful to look at the Win Rates by date for a single quote currency in conjunction with the changes in BTC price during the month, as shown in the chart immediately below. Signals for each quote currency are strongly related to BTC price movements in different ways.
Amount of Signals by Date
This chart is broken down by quote currency and is most useful when comparing quote currencies for a single exchange. Exchanges will vary in which quote currencies they offer and which have the most pairs and therefore the most signals.
Pairs with Best and Worst Win Rate
The left side is sorted by win Rate 1%, descending (highest to lowest). The right side is sorted by the same column but ascending (lowest to highest), so these pairs were the worst performers during the month.
Click the 3 dot menu top right for sorting options and rest, or click a column heading to sort.
Mouse over the table to see scroll bars and scroll down if needed.
The table shown is for Binance USDT pairs. The example outlined: USDT-BADGER, had 3 signals of which only 1 was successful (33%) and reached 3% TP. The average Drop for this pair was -8.7%.
If a certain pair has a poor win rate over a few months, it can be worth excluding (blacklisting). It is wise to assess how leveraged tokens perform, especially short tokens such as FILDOWN (outlined in green). They often have large average drops, and their success rate can vary a lot from month to month.
Drops
The following chart shows how far the price initially dropped below the initial signal price, and for each drop level, how many recovered to make a profit of 3% (green bars) and how many did not make a 3% profit (red bars).
If the price dropped, bounced and then dropped again, only the first drop is recorded here (due to limits on data).
For this table, no DCAs are assumed.
In general, the smaller the drop below the initial signal price, the higher the chance of profit, although this depends on whether DCAs are used.
Mouse over the bars for details.
At -10% drop below the signal price (outlined), 41 signals made 3% profit and 6 did not.
At <-50% drop, 23 made 3% profit and 32 did not reach 3% profit.
DCA
The final table offers a comparison of success rates for two DCA strategies:
Reports up to February 2022: Strategy 1: -4%, -8% and -12% and Strategy 2: -5%, -10% and -15% (with percentages relative to the average entry price at the time). In both cases the DCAs double the current position.
Reports from March 2022: Strategy 1: -5%, -10% and -15% and Strategy 2: -6%, -12% and -20% (the percentages are relative to the initial entry price). In both cases the DCAs double the current position.
After accounting for the different calculation methods, the DCAs used in each of these scenarios are roughly equivalent.
The top area of the DCA section provides a summary for the scenario (i.e. filters selected), with total number of signals and success rate with no DCAs.
Next is a comparison of Strategy 1 with Strategy 2 (see table above). The total Signals (469) are assessed to determine which reached each level (No DCA; DCA1; DCA2; DCA3).
Each signal is also assessed as to whether it returns to >3% above the average entry price (3% profit).
For Strategy 1, 205 of the 469 signals did not reach DCA 1 (-4%). Of those 204 reached 3% profit.
110 signals reached DCA3 (having filled DCA1 and DCA2). OF these 87 (79.1%) reached 3% profit by the time the report was compiled.
224 (87 + 59 + 78) signals reached one or more DCAs and reached 3% profit.
40 (33 + 3 + 4) signals reached one or more DCAs and did not reach 3% profit.
Of the 264 signals that reached one or more DCAs, 84.8% reached 3% profit.
The number that did not reach 3% profit after reaching DCA3 is much higher than the signals that reached DCA1 or DCA2.
In general, the results are very similar for Strategy 1 and Strategy 2.
As would be expected for Strategy 2 with slightly deeper DCAs, a few more signals did not reach DCA1.
Related Topics:
Glossary for the Base Scanner and Base Trading
Altrady's Signal Bot (draft documentation)
Understanding the "Bases" Widget of Altrady
Base Info widget
Video: CBS Trading with Altrady and bots
Videos: CryptoTradingDev's YouTube channel all about CBS signals and managing Bot positions
Updated on: 16/04/2024
Thank you!