Kelp

Kelp is a free and open-source trading bot for the Stellar universal marketplace and for centralized exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, CoinbasePro, etc.

Kelp includes several configurable trading strategies and exchange integrations. You can define your own parameters or use the sample configurations to quickly get up and running with a trading bot in a matter of minutes. The modular design allows you to easily create new trading strategies, exchange integrations, and assets to give you full control over the bot.

Kelp is built to:

• Make spreads and make markets
• Create liquidity and facilitate price-discovery for ICOs
• Price and trade custom stablecoins
• Mimic orderbooks from other exchanges

To learn more about the Stellar protocol check out Stellar Videos on Coinbase Earn, or this video about the Stellar DEX created by Lumenauts, or read more about it on the Stellar Website.

Be Smart and Go Slow

Important Disclaimer: Be Smart and Go Slow. Whenever you trade on Stellar, you are trading with volatile assets, in volatile markets, and you risk losing money. Kelp is an experimental software that contains bugs. Use Kelp at your own risk. There is no guarantee you'll make a profit from using our bots or strategies. In fact, if you set bad parameters or market conditions change, Kelp might help you lose money very fast. So be smart and go slow.

Your use of Kelp is governed by the Apache 2.0 open-source license. Please note that SDF’s interactions with you are governed by the SDF Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
  • How To Get Kelp
    • Download Kelp Binary
    • Run With Docker
    • Compile from Source
  • Running Kelp
    • Using CCXT
    • Using Postgres
    • Using Auth0
  • Examples
    • Walkthrough Guides
    • Configuration Files
    • Winning Educational Content from StellarBattle
• Components
  • Strategies
  • Price Feeds
  • Exchanges
  • Plugins
  • Directory Structure
  • Accounting
• Community
  • Contributing
  • Changelog
  • Code of Conduct
  • Project Improvements
• Public Assets

Getting Started

How To Get Kelp

To get started with Kelp, either download the pre-compiled binary for your platform from the Github Releases Page or compile Kelp from source.

There is one binary associated with this project: kelp. Once the binary is downloaded, run the bot by following the instructions in Running Kelp.

Download Kelp Binary

You can find the pre-compiled binary for your platform from the Github Releases Page.

GUI

Here is a list of binaries for the most recent release v1.0.0-rc2 (v1.12.0):

CLI

Here is a list of binaries for the most recent release v1.12.0:

After you untar the downloaded file, change to the generated directory (kelp-v1.12.0) and invoke the kelp binary.

Here's an example to get you started (replace filename with the name of the file that you download):

tar xvf filename
cd kelp-v1.12.0
./kelp

To run the bot in simulation mode, try this command:

./kelp trade -c sample_trader.cfg -s buysell -f sample_buysell.cfg --sim

Run With Docker

This docker image (nikhilsaraf/kelp:latest) points to the latest pre-compiled version of the kelp binary v1.12.0, which can be run like this:

docker run nikhilsaraf/kelp:latest version docker run nikhilsaraf/kelp:latest trade -c sample_trader.cfg -s buysell -f sample_buysell.cfg --sim docker run nikhilsaraf/kelp:latest exchanges docker run nikhilsaraf/kelp:latest strategies

Compile from Source

Note for Windows Users: You should use a Bash Shell to follow the steps below. This will give you a UNIX environment in which to run your commands and will enable the ./scripts/build.sh bash script to work correctly.

To compile Kelp from source:

1. Download and setup Golang v1.13 or later
   1. Set environment variable export GOPROXY=https://goproxy.io,https://proxy.golang.org,https://goproxy.cn
2. Install Yarn and NodeJs (Node v12.3.1 via nvm) to build the Kelp GUI
3. Clone the kelp repository git clone [email protected]:stellar/kelp.git
4. Install the astilectron-bundler binary
   • go install github.com/asticode/go-astilectron-bundler/astilectron-bundler
5. Build the binaries using the provided build script (the go install command will produce a faulty binary):
   • ./scripts/build.sh (this must be invoked from root directory i.e. kelp)
6. Confirm one new binary file exists with version information.
   • ./bin/kelp version
7. Set up CCXT to use an expanded set of priceFeeds and orderbooks (see the Using CCXT section for details)
   • sudo docker run -p 3000:3000 -d franzsee/ccxt-rest:v0.0.4

Running Kelp

Kelp places orders on the Stellar marketplace based on the selected strategy. Configuration files specify the Stellar account and strategy details.

These are the following commands available from the kelp binary:

• trade: Trades with a specific strategy against the Stellar universal marketplace
• exchanges: Lists the available exchange integrations along with capabilities
• strategies: Lists the available strategies along with details
• version: Version and build information
• help: Help about any command

The trade command has three required parameters which are:

• botConf: full path to the .cfg file with the account details, sample file here.
• strategy: the strategy you want to run (sell, sell_twap, buysell, balanced, pendulum, mirror, delete).
• stratConf: full path to the .cfg file specific to your chosen strategy, sample files here.

Kelp sets the X-App-Name and X-App-Version headers on requests made to Horizon. These headers help us track overall Kelp usage, so that we can learn about general usage patterns and adapt Kelp to be more useful in the future. Kelp also uses Amplitude for metric tracking. These can be turned off using the --no-headers flag. See kelp trade --help for more information.

Here's an example of how to start the trading bot with the buysell strategy:

kelp trade --botConf ./path/trader.cfg --strategy buysell --stratConf ./path/buysell.cfg

If you are ever stuck, just run kelp help to bring up the help section or type kelp help [command] for help with a specific command.

Using CCXT

You can use the CCXT library via the CCXT REST API Wrapper to fetch prices and orderbooks from a larger number of exchanges. You will need to run the CCXT REST server on localhost:3000 so Kelp can connect to it.

The CCXT-REST server must be running on port 3000 before you start up the Kelp bot. You can list the exchanges (./kelp exchanges) to get the full list of supported exchanges via CCXT.

Note: this integration is still experimental and is also incomplete. Please use at your own risk.

CCXT-rest can be run in any one of the following ways.

Download CCXT Binary

We have compiled the ccxt-rest v0.0.4 server as a binary for all x86 platforms (linux, darwin, windows). This is the version that Kelp currently uses.

You can find these pre-compiled binaries of the CCXT-rest server in the releases tab here.

Run CCXT using Docker

Install docker (linux: sudo apt install -y docker.io) and run the CCXT-REST docker image configured to port 3000 (linux: sudo docker run -p 3000:3000 -d franzsee/ccxt-rest:v0.0.4). You can find more details on the CCXT_REST github page.

Using Postgres

Postgres v12.1 or later must be installed for Kelp to automatically write trades to a sql database along with updating the trader config file.

Using Auth0

A auth0 account is required. To use it, uncomment [AUTH0] section in Sample GUI config file and enter your auth0 crendentials in required fields. Note: AUTH0 is only applicable for Kelp GUI or Kaas Mode. Intructions of how to configure your auth0 account can be found here

Examples

It's easier to learn with examples! Take a look at the walkthrough guides and sample configuration files below.

Walkthrough Guides

• Setting up a trading account: This guide uses an example token, COUPON, to show you how to set up your account before deploying the bot.
• Market making for a stablecoin: This guide uses the buysell strategy to provide liquidity for a stablecoin.
• ICO sale: This guide uses the sell strategy to make a market using sell offers for native tokens in a hypothetical ICO.
• TWAP sale: This guide uses the sell_twap strategy to consistently sell tokens throughout the day. This can also be used for ICOs.
• Create liquidity AMM for a Stellar-based token: This guide uses the balanced strategy to create liquidty for a token which only trades on the Stellar network.
• Create targeted liquidity AMM within a bounded price range: This guide uses the pendulum strategy to create liquidty for a token.

Configuration Files

Each strategy you implement needs a configuration file. The format of the configuration file is specific to the selected strategy. You can use these files to customize parameters for your chosen strategy.

The following reference config files are in the examples folder:

• Sample Sell strategy config file
• Sample BuySell strategy config file
• Sample Balanced strategy config file
• Sample Pendulum strategy config file
• Sample Mirror strategy config file
• Sample GUI(auth0 and other stuff) config file

Winning Educational Content from StellarBattle

SDF sponsored a Kelp StellarBattle in August/September 2020, here were the winning results (announcement):

• How To Create Liquidity With Kelp On The Stellar Dex (Winner)
• Make use of arbitrage opportunities with Kelp bot (Runner-Up)
• Market Making in Stellar 101: Fundamentals & Kelp
• Market Making on Stellar with Kelp Quickstart Guide
• Kelp: Setup your first trading bot on the Stellar Network (using Windows)

Components

Kelp includes an assortment of strategies, price feeds, and plugins you can use to customize your bot. Kelp also enables you to create your own trading strategies.

github.com/stellar/kelp
├── api/            # API interfaces live here (strategy, exchange, price feeds, etc.)
├── cmd/            # Cobra commands (trade, exchanges, strategies, etc.)
├── examples/       # Sample config files and walkthroughs
├── model/          # Low-level structs (dates, orderbook, etc.)
├── plugins/        # Implementations of API interfaces (sell strategy, kraken, etc.)
├── support/        # Helper functions and utils
├── trader/         # Trader bot logic; uses other top-level packages like api, plugins, etc.
├── glide.yaml      # Glide dependencies
├── main.go         # main function for our kelp binary
└── ...

Community

• Ask questions on the Stellar StackExchange using the kelp tag
• Announcements will be made on the announcements distribution list
• Community discussions (outside of questions) can take place on the user mailing list

Public Assets