ETH Mid-Candle Scalper 🔥

77%+ win rate. Real money. 400+ trades. ETH's 15-minute markets are even more profitable than BTC's — if you know when to enter. This strategy does. The BTC alignment gate alone filters out a third of losing trades. Battle-tested, configurable, and running 24/7.

This is a template. The default signal is mid-candle ETH momentum from Binance klines, filtered by BTC cross-asset alignment — remix it with your own data sources, alternate confirmation signals, or additional asset gates. The skill handles all the plumbing (market discovery, BTC/ETH data fetching, execution, safeguards). Your tuning provides the alpha.

What It Does

ETH Up/Down markets on Polymarket close every 15 minutes. This strategy waits until the candle has shown its hand — typically 2–12 minutes remaining — and only enters when:

1. ETH momentum is clear: 5m and 3m price change both agree on direction
2. BTC agrees: BTC isn't moving hard against you (cross-asset alignment check)
3. Volume confirms: The move is backed by real activity, not noise
4. Entry price is fair: Not too cheap (contrarian) or too expensive (overpriced)

Why BTC alignment matters: ETH and BTC are heavily correlated. When ETH is signaling UP but BTC is dumping 0.3%, you're fighting the tide — and you'll lose. The BTC gate eliminates that class of trade entirely.

The result: 77%+ win rate on real money. Out of the box.

⚠️ Important: The defaults are calibrated to produce edge, but you need to tune them. Different account sizes, different risk tolerances, different times of day all affect optimal settings. The tuning guide below tells you exactly what to adjust and why. A tuned strategy beats a default strategy every time.

Setup

1. Install

clawhub install polymarket-eth-midcandle

Set your API key:

export SIMMER_API_KEY=sk_live_your_key_here

2. Configure your agent ID

python eth_midcandle.py --set poly_agent_id=your_agent_id_here

Find your agent ID at simmer.markets/dashboard → Agents.

3. Paper trade first

python eth_midcandle.py

You'll see [PAPER MODE] — no real money. Run this for at least a day to understand when it fires and why.

4. Go live

python eth_midcandle.py --live

5. Set up cron

crontab -e

Add:

3,8,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,53,58 * * * * cd /path/to/skill && python eth_midcandle.py --live >> /var/log/eth-midcandle.log 2>&1

Runs every 5 minutes, staggered for best execution timing.

Configuration

python eth_midcandle.py --config
python eth_midcandle.py --set momentum_threshold=0.0012

⚠️ SKIP HOURS — READ THIS BEFORE TRADING

By default, the strategy skips hour 13 UTC (9am ET) and hour 17 UTC (1pm ET). These hours have a historically poor ETH midcandle win rate — sub-45%, meaning you lose money on average.

• Hour 13 UTC (9am ET): NY open volatility makes ETH momentum signals unreliable. Sharp reversals are common.
• Hour 17 UTC (1pm ET): Post-lunch chop. Random, low-conviction price action that fakes out momentum signals.

Do NOT remove these skip hours unless you have your own data (50+ trades minimum) showing profitability during those hours. The default skip list exists because real money was lost learning this lesson.

To modify: python eth_midcandle.py --set skip_hours=13,17,21 (add hours) or --set skip_hours= (disable — not recommended).

Tuning Guide

The defaults work. Tuning makes them work better for you specifically.

Momentum threshold (momentum_threshold)

How much ETH must move in 5 minutes before you enter.

• Lower (0.0008–0.0012): More trades. Good when ETH is in a clear trend.
• Higher (0.0018–0.0025): Only trade strong moves. Better in choppy or sideways conditions.
• Start at default (0.0012) and only adjust after 50+ paper trades.

BTC alignment gate (btc_gate_threshold)

The BTC 5m move that triggers a veto.

• Lower (0.0010): Stricter BTC filter — vetoes more trades when BTC wiggles
• Higher (0.0020–0.0025): Only veto when BTC is moving hard — allows more ETH-independent trades
• Default (0.0015) is the sweet spot: vetoes divergent trades without over-filtering

Volume ratio (min_volume_ratio)

Filters low-volume moves that tend to reverse.

• 0 (disabled): Pure momentum, no volume filter
• 1.1 (default): Trade when volume is 10% above the 2-hour average
• 1.5+: High-conviction only. Fewer trades, stronger confirmation

Entry price window

• Too cheap (<0.40): You're fading the crowd — usually wrong
• Too expensive (>0.70): Limited upside relative to risk
• Default 0.45–0.65: Balanced. You can tighten to 0.50–0.60 for higher precision at cost of volume

1m confirmation (enable_1m_confirm) — OFF by default

Adds a final gate: the last 1-minute candle must agree with your trade direction.

• Disabled (default): More trades, baseline win rate
• Enabled: Meaningful reduction in false signals — especially useful during London/NY open volatility

💡 Tip: Enable 1m_confirm after your first week of paper trading. Most users see their win rate tick up 2–4% with it on.

Skip hours (skip_hours)

UTC hours with historically poor ETH midcandle win rate. Defaults are 13,17.

• Hour 13 UTC (9am ET): NY open volatility makes momentum signals unreliable
• Hour 17 UTC (1pm ET): Post-lunch chop, random price action
• Only remove these if you have enough personal data showing otherwise

Commands

python eth_midcandle.py               # Paper trade
python eth_midcandle.py --live        # Real trades
python eth_midcandle.py --positions   # Open positions
python eth_midcandle.py --config      # Current config
python eth_midcandle.py --smart-sizing  # Size by portfolio %
python eth_midcandle.py --no-safeguards  # Skip flip-flop/slippage checks
python eth_midcandle.py --set momentum_threshold=0.0010

Example Output

============================================================
🔴 LIVE: ETH Mid-Candle Scalper — 2026-03-15 22:18 UTC
============================================================
⏰ Candle :15 | 7 min remaining | ✅ In window
📊 Volume: 1.34x ✅
📈 ETH Momentum: up | 5m: +0.1543% | 3m: +0.0821%
   1m: up (+0.0412%) — gate disabled
₿  BTC check: +0.0923% — ✅ aligned
📋 Market: Will ETH go up or down — March 15, 10:15-10:30PM ET?
💲 Entry price: 0.531 (side=yes)

🚀 Placing YES $5.00 — Mid-candle up (7m left): 5m=+0.1543% 3m=+0.0821% vol=1.34x BTC=+0.0923%
✅ Filled: 9.4 YES shares for $5.00

The BTC Gate — Explained

ETH and BTC move together ~80% of the time. When they diverge:

• ETH signaling UP while BTC dropping hard → ETH is wrong, BTC leads
• ETH signaling DOWN while BTC pumping hard → same problem

The BTC gate catches this. Before entering, the strategy checks if BTC moved more than btc_gate_threshold in the opposite direction. If it did, the trade is skipped.

This single filter is responsible for a significant portion of the win rate improvement over naive ETH momentum strategies. Don't disable it without data.

Remix Ideas

• Funding rate confirmation: Only trade ETH UP when perpetual funding is positive (longs paying)
• ETH/BTC ratio: Add a ratio signal — trade ETH when it's outperforming BTC on the ratio
• Options skew: Skip trades when ETH options put/call ratio is elevated
• On-chain: Add net exchange flows as a confirmation signal for larger size

Troubleshooting

Firing less than expected?

• Lower momentum_threshold to 0.0010
• Check skip hours — maybe you're running during 13h or 17h UTC
• Verify your cron is running: tail -f /var/log/eth-midcandle.log

Losing more than expected?

• Enable enable_1m_confirm — adds a key anti-noise filter
• Raise momentum_threshold to 0.0018
• Check that btc_gate_threshold is set — it should NOT be 0

"BTC check failed"?

• Binance API timeout — the strategy falls through to neutral (still trades)
• If happening regularly, your server may have connectivity issues to Binance

Win rate below 65%?

• You're likely trading the wrong hours — check if hour 13 or 17 UTC is in your logs
• Try enabling enable_1m_confirm
• Run paper mode for a week before re-evaluating