Quentin

In this tutorial, we’ll see how to create API keys on Coinbase Pro to connect your Coinbase account to third-party services. These may be bitcoin trading bots like Botcrypto, but also tools related to taxation or viewing your assets.

What’s an API?

An API is a programming interface that allows you to “plug in” to an application to exchange data.

In our case, the API allows you to access a trading platform and perform various actions. It’s possible to restrict access to a third party via an API key. Example: Allow to view the funds in your Coinbase Pro account but prevent withdrawals.

How to create API keys on Coinbase Pro?

You must first create a Coinbase account and then go to Coinbase Pro.

Once connected to Coinbase Pro, click on the top right menu, then on API. You are now in front of your list of API keys.

Click on + New Api Key to open the key creation form, where you will be asked to fill in several fields.

You must choose which of your portfolios will be the target of this API key. If you have only one, leave Default Portfolio as answer.

Adding a name to your key is optional but I recommend you to do it. In my case I will name it “tuto”. It’s useful to find your way around if you have several API keys.

Then check which permissions you assign to this API key. In the context of trading bots I will give him the permission to “View” to see the amount of assets in the portfolio and “Trade” to authorize trading actions (open position/buy/sell). I don’t give the “Transfer” permission because I don’t want the service I use to automate my trading to have the possibility to withdraw my money from my accounts.

A PassPhrase has been automatically generated and you can change it or keep it as is. If you don’t know what a PassPhrase is, leave the original one.

The last field is IP Whitelist if you want to restrict the use of this key to a list of IPs for more security.

Click on “Create API key” to finalize the creation of the API key.

You will surely get an authentication request via SMS or on your two factor authentication application.

Once this is done you should get a validation message for the creation of the key.

Keep carefully the private key API Secret provided. It will not be possible to retrieve it after this.

You have now succesfully created an API key!

To use this key on a service you will be asked for a public and private key. The public key is the one displayed on the card of an API key as on the previous screenshot 7ce2d5fe2ad78d9a4688d0f5af509ac6 and the private key is the API Secret you saved preciously before.

Introduction

Freqtrade is a free and open source crypto trading software. With Freqtrade, you can create fully customizable trading bots, make backtests, etc… The software is developed in python and is compatible with Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Tutorial’s goal : install Freqtrade and perform a backtest with a basic strategy

This tutorial is intended both for people wishing to create their first crypto trading bot and for curious people wishing to discover how Freqtrade works. Freqtrade does not offer a graphical user interface, and it is rather reserved for users with technical knowledge. If you want to easily and quickly create crypto trading bots, take a look at our platform Botcrypto. The registration is free!

Prerequisites

This tutorial has been realized on a Ubuntu 20.04 server.

We will need python3 and git.

• To install the various prerequisites, run the following command:

sudo apt install git && sudo apt install python3 && sudo apt install python3-pip && sudo apt install python3-venv

Freqtrade’s installation

• First, we will clone the git repository by executing the command below:

git clone https://github.com/freqtrade/freqtrade.git

• Once the download is complete, we will go to the freqtrade folder:

cd freqtrade

• Then we will execute as administrator the installation script setup.sh :

sudo ./setup.sh --install

For both downloading development dependencies and resetting the git branch, press the <Enter> key to choose the default value (which is ‘no’ in both cases).

Freqtrade’s configuration

• In order to use Freqtrade, you need to activate his virtual environment :

source .env/bin/activate;

You can now use the Freqtrade commands. First we will choose different parameters for your first robot.

• Execute the command freqtrade new-config -c config.json

For each question, press the <Enter> key to choose the default value.

Freqtrade’s usage

• To create a strategy called test, simply execute the following command:

freqtrade new-strategy --strategy test

A strategy with default values is then created. We will see in a future tutorial how to customize this strategy.

Now we will use this strategy in a backtest, a test in the past. We will need the old market data.

• Execute freqtrade download-data to download old market data.

Downloading market data can take a few minutes.

• Once the download is complete, run :

freqtrade backtesting --strategy test

Once the backtest is complete, you will see a summary of its results.

We can see from the results of my bot that it was not very efficient:

-36.32% in a month in which the market lost only 10.2%. My bot made me lose 3.6x more money than if I had just invested…

We notice that the robot has 20 winning trades against 7 losers which questions us on the reason of the final result. We notice via the Worst day value that one day the robot lost 28.54%, which is considerable. If we had personalized our strategy by better managing our risk, this would not have happened. And that’s the subject of our next article 😉 [Tutorial] Create your own trading bot strategy with Freqtrade. In the meantime, you can consult our guide about trading bots to learn more about trading bots.