[Guide] Buying (not selling) a coin exactly when listed, at market rate, in Spot Trading (not Margin)

[ADTC]

Hey all, I made changes to this project in order to buy THE (Thena) when it listed today. I am on MacOS so I had lot of challenges and only a few hours to fix them. Here are my notes:

Which Python?

Using the right Python was the first challenge. MacOS has an outdated version of Python 3 pre-installed, and you can install latest Python through Homebrew. Both won't work here.

• Apple's flavor of Python is built with LibreSSL but python-binance needs OpenSSL.
• Homebrew Python makes it a challenge to install the dependencies correctly, with confusing error messages about externally-managed-environment.

Your best bet is to download the pkg file from Python website and install it with the installed. When you run where python3 you should see /usr/local/bin/python3 in the list. You must always use this with the exact path. Example: /usr/local/bin/python3 ./main.py

Dependencies

Installation script:

/usr/local/bin/python3 -m pip install python-binance
/usr/local/bin/python3 -m pip install pyyaml

I do not install Selenium because I will not use it. See below.

PS: To project author: It will be helpful if the dependencies are in a requirements.txt file.

Code changes

Tip: I highly recommend using VS Code with the Python extension.

Selenium dependency is for the web scraper, which just checks Binance Announcements page and sends an email when a new coin is announced. This part of the project is entirely optional and if you're just trying to buy/sell a new listing, it's totally unnecessary.

I also think this will slow down the Python interpreter even further, so it's better to remove it.

• Disable the announcement scraper: # from new_listings_scraper import *
• Comment out the announcement scraper thread: # threading.Thread(target=search_and_update, ...
• Ignore the EMAIL_ADDRESS and EMAIL_PASSWORD keys in config.yml. You don't need to set anything here.

Just to know that something is happening, I added a dot indicator. This is completely optional:

import sys

# in main()
    runcount = 0
    while True:
        runcount += 1
        if runcount >= 1000000:
            sys.stdout.write('.')
            sys.stdout.flush()
            runcount = 0

        try:

Avoid selling immediately. We're looking to HOLD the coin we bought:

                            # store_order('order.json', order)
                            print('Order not stored')

Change the order type from a Margin Order to a Spot Order:

In trade_client.py

⚠️ CAUTION: This will buy with ALL of the available USDT assets in your Spot Wallet to your new target coin. If you want to use only a portion, change assetBalance to the number you want (decimals accepted).

def create_order(coin, asset):
    """
    Creates simple buy order and returns the order
    """
    assetBalance = client.get_asset_balance(asset=asset).get('free')
    return client.order_market_buy(
        symbol = coin,
        quoteOrderQty = assetBalance,
    )

And in main.py

          order[coin['symbol']] = create_order(symbol_only+pairing, pairing) #, volume, 'SELL')
          # order[coin['symbol']]['tp'] = tp
          # order[coin['symbol']]['sl'] = sl

Next, get rid of price and volume computations (you no longer need them after above change):

                        # price = get_price(symbol_only, pairing)
                        # volume = convert_volume(coin['symbol'], qty, price)
# PS: Just replace them with `0` where these variables are referenced.

In hindsight, I should have commented out the print statements as well, because it slows down the interpreter when trying to buy the coin (by milliseconds, yes, but those milliseconds matter!):

                # print(f'New coins detected: {new_coins}')
# and
                        # print(f"New coin detected, but ...
# and
                        # print(f"Preparing to buy {coin['symbol']}")

Configuration changes

• In config.yml I had to fix the quoting in EMAIL_PASSWORD: "I'll let you figure out what this one is" or the YAML processor will error out trying to parse this.
  • Or you can just blank it out: EMAIL_PASSWORD: ''.
• In auth.yml I commented out the # binance_tld key because my TLD is com. If yours is different, you will need to set it.

Binance API and testing

When setting up the API keys, you need to add your own IP address to Binance API management. Just search "what is my IP address" in Google, and use any website to get it. Only after you add an IP address, you can enable "Spot and Margin Trading" access for the API key.

To ensure that your API keys are working correctly you should try retrieving the balance of any existing currency. Just add this to trade_client.py at top level (after client is defined):

print(client.get_asset_balance(asset='USDT'))

Try a test run with /usr/local/bin/python3 ./main.py and if you can see your balance, the API key works. (If you added the wrong IP address, it will fail.) Once tested, terminate the script with Control-C pressed twice.

Live Run

Now you can set TEST: False and run it 1 minute before the coin goes live.

⚠️ WARNING: The script fires API calls several times in a second, which can trigger excessive API usage in your account if you keep on running it. Once the new coin is purchased, kill off the script with Control-C pressed twice.

My Result: Newly listed coin was purchased with my USDT balance immediately at the 0-second mark upon listing, but there was still some milliseconds delay. I'm estimating 700 milliseconds, and the price rose a little from the initial listing price. Nevertheless I got a very competitive price and I'm making a decent profit by holding.

Live Run Update

Successfully purchased two new listings (at the same time) with the script optimized to only print anything after buying both:

for coin in new_coins:
    # loop code with the buy call (no printing here)

# print the orders
print(" New coins: ")
print(new_coins)
print(" All orders: ")
print(order)

Also, commented out all unused variables and imports.

In order to split my USDT balance $50 equally between the two new listings, I added this in def create_order(coin, asset):

def create_order(coin, asset):
    
    assetBalance = client.get_asset_balance(asset=asset).get('free')
    
    if float(assetBalance) > 30:
        assetBalance = 25

    return client.order_market_buy( ...

Note: Because of market volatility, the exact amount may be greater than 25 but only by a few cents, which is why we compare > 30 which is still well below 50.