Whats the theoretical basis for this bot? I'm familiar with margin bots, how does this one make it's profit?
I almost hope it doesn't now days!
When btce first got USD/BTC/LTC there were some interesting discrepancies in the order book. Normally in an HFT market these are handled by the exchange or a close third party.
Basically the bot was designed to exploit differences in the USD/BTC BTC/LTC LTC/USD trade books. Using the following paths:
BULB -> Trade BTC for USD, Trade USD for LTC, Trade LTC for BTC
You would end up with more btc than you started with!
BLUB -> Trade BTC for LTC, Trade LTC for USD, Trade USD for BTC.
You could also start and end in USD with the bot.
The difference between this code and most other bot codes was the recursive order sizing.
The bot would parse the order book from B to U to L to B or any other direction, find the MAXIMUM trade size for the entire trade leg, then execute the trade leg.
The practice of currency arbitrage especially for BTC was a lot more solid back then. You used to be able to snail mail a money order to CampBX, exchange it for BTC, move the BTC to another exchange, trade the BTC for USD, withdraw the USD and repeat and make 2-8% profit per trade route!