I Built a Crypto Bot That Actually Makes Money — Here's What I Learned

Everyone builds a crypto bot at some point. Most lose money. Mine didn't — but not for the reasons I expected. After 101 trades and 83 days of backtesting, here's what actually mattered. The Strategy That Worked: OBV Accumulation I tried three different strategies before finding one that held up. Moving average crossovers? Too many false signals. RSI divergence? Works in textbooks, not in crypto's 24/7 volatility. What worked: On-Balance Volume (OBV) Accumulation . The idea is simple — track volume flow before price moves. When OBV is accumulating (smart money buying) while price is flat or dipping, that's your signal. def calculate_obv_accumulation ( candles , lookback = 20 ): obv = [ 0 ] for i in range ( 1 , len ( candles )): if candles [ i ]. close > candles [ i - 1 ]. close : obv . append ( obv [ - 1 ] + candles [ i ]. volume ) elif candles [ i ]. close < candles [ i - 1 ]. close : obv . append ( obv [ - 1 ] - candles [ i ]. volume ) else : obv . append ( obv [ - 1 ]) # Accumulatio