Getting Started with VTX Macro

⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL SOFTWARE & RISK WARNING

VTX Macro is an experimental AI trading tool in active development. AI models can hallucinate, misunderstand market conditions, and make unpredictable trades leading to rapid financial loss.

By using this software, you acknowledge:

• The AI can and will make mistakes.
• You should only trade with money you can afford to lose. Do not use rent money, savings, or crucial funds.
• You are entirely responsible for your trades. The developers of VTX Macro are not liable for any losses incurred. Set strict conservative limits before enabling automated trading.

Welcome to VTX Macro, your advanced AI-powered trading platform. This platform is designed to help you automate your trading strategies using cutting-edge AI models and real-time market analysis. Whether you are looking to automate trades or get intelligent market insights, VTX Macro provides the tools you need.

How It Works

VTX Macro connects to your Hyperliquid account to execute trades on your behalf. Our AI engine analyzes market data, identifies trends, and executes strategies based on your configuration. The system operates in real-time, ensuring that you never miss a trading opportunity.

• Real-time Analysis: Continuous monitoring of market conditions.
• AI Execution: Automated trade execution based on AI signals.
• Risk Management: Built-in safeguards to protect your capital.

Setting Up Hyperliquid

To use VTX Macro, you need to connect your Hyperliquid account. Follow these steps carefully to ensure correct configuration:

IMPORTANT: Account Type Requirement VTX Macro supports Standard Perps Accounts and Unified Accounts for credential verification and perp trading.

• Standard Account: You explicitly deposit USDC into your "Perps" account to trade.
• Unified Account: Spot collateral can back perp positions. This is now supported in compatibility mode.

Current Unified Account Scope (Compatibility Mode):

• Perp trading and wallet verification are supported.
• Platform analytics remain perps-focused (spot activity is not included in strategy PnL calculations).

How to Switch Between Account Types: If you want to switch between Unified Account mode and a Standard Perps Account:

1. Go to the Hyperliquid App.
2. Click the Gear Icon (Settings) in the top right corner.
3. Check or uncheck the "Disable Unified Account Mode" checkbox.
4. If you disable Unified Account mode, you must manually transfer USDC from your Spot balance to your Perps account within Hyperliquid to trade with VTX Macro.

1. Connect to Hyperliquid: Go to Hyperliquid and connect your main trading wallet (e.g., via RabbitX or direct connection). This is the wallet that holds your funds.
2. Generate API Wallet: Navigate to the API section in the Hyperliquid dashboard. Click to generate a new API Wallet.
   • This will provide you with an API Wallet Address and a Private Key.
   • Copy the Private Key immediately, as it may not be shown again.
3. Configure VTX Macro: Go to the System page on VTX Macro.
4. Enter Credentials:
   • Wallet Address: Enter your MAIN Wallet Address (the one with the funds), NOT the API wallet address.
   • Private Key: Enter the API Wallet Private Key you just generated.

CRITICAL: The "Wallet Address" field must be your Main Wallet Address (where your funds are). The "Private Key" is the signer key from the API wallet. If you enter the API wallet address as the main address, the system will not be able to find your funds or execute trades correctly.

Verification & Requirements

To ensure security and proper configuration, the system verifies your credentials by attempting to place a small test order.

• Minimum Balance: Your wallet must have at least $15 USDC to pass the verification check.
• Test Order: The system places a limit order far above the market price.
• Safety: This order is designed NOT to execute and is immediately canceled.
• Purpose: This confirms that your Agent Key is correctly authorized to trade on behalf of your Main Wallet.

Security & Fund Custody

Is my money safe? Can VTX Macro withdraw my funds?

Yes, your money is safe, and no, VTX Macro cannot withdraw your funds. The platform is strictly non-custodial, meaning your capital remains securely protected by Hyperliquid's native cryptographic boundaries.

When you configure the platform, you provide an API Wallet (Agent Key), not your main wallet's private key. Hyperliquid's protocol enforces strict, mathematical limitations on what an Agent Key can do:

• What it CAN do: Place orders, cancel orders, and adjust leverage (known as L1 trading actions).
• What it CANNOT do: Withdraw funds, transfer USDC, or move assets to another account.

Withdrawals and transfers are "User-Signed Actions" that can only be authorized by your Main Wallet (e.g., your MetaMask or Rabby extension).

Because of this architectural design, even in the absolute worst-case scenario—if your VTX Macro account or the platform itself were fully compromised—your funds mathematically cannot be withdrawn or stolen. The maximum risk exposure from a leaked API key is strictly limited to unauthorized trading activity within the exchange.

System Settings

The System page is the central configuration hub for your VTX Macro environment. From here, you can manage your trading profiles, connect your exchange accounts, configure AI providers (BYOK), and personalize your user settings.

System Monitoring

The System page acts as a real-time dashboard for your platform's health.

• Live Price Feed: Displays the current Bitcoin price tick directly from the data stream. A pulsing green dot indicates a healthy, low-latency connection (< 250ms latency).
• Data Freshness: Timestamps and update counters show exactly when the last data packet was received.
• Visual Status: Price changes flash green (up) or red (down) to confirm the UI is reactive.

Note on Defaults: Looking for the default AI parameters (Timeout, Tokens, etc.)? These are listed in Global Platform Defaults, not on the System page.

Trading Profiles

Profiles allow you to create isolated environments for different trading strategies or purposes. Each profile maintains its own:

• Exchange Connection (Wallet Address)
• AI Preferences (Risk tolerance, active models)
• Trade History & Performance Metrics

Managing Profiles

• Create: Click the + button to create a new profile (e.g., "Scalping Strategy", "Long Term Hold").
• Switch: Click on any profile card to make it active. The entire application (Trading, Analysis, Settings) will context-switch to this profile.
• Delete: Remove unused profiles to keep your workspace clean. Note: Trading history for deleted profiles may be archived.

Exchange Connection (Hyperliquid)

Connect your Hyperliquid account to enable live trading. See Getting Started for the full step-by-step guide on generating these credentials.

• Wallet Address: Your primary Hyperliquid address (e.g., 0x...). This is used for monitoring balances and positions.
• Private Key: The API Wallet Private Key generated from the Hyperliquid settings page.
  • Note: Do not use your main wallet's private key. Always use an API Wallet key, which is restricted to trading only and cannot withdraw funds.

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)

All new users join VTX Macro as Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) users by default. To run the bot and use the AI analysis features, you will need to provide your own API keys from your preferred AI providers.

If you are a legacy platform user utilizing the platform's managed quota, you can also transition to BYOK mode to benefit from higher rate limits, specific model versions, and direct billing with providers.

Note: Switching your account from BYOK mode to platform managed mode currently requires administrator approval. Please contact support or an administrator at admin@vtxmacro.com to request this change.

Supported Providers

VTX Macro currently connects natively to 4 direct providers and 2 aggregator networks, offering an expansive library of over 300+ models:

• Direct Providers:
  • OpenAI: GPT 5.4 (including Pro, Mini, and Nano), GPT 5.3, and all current and legacy models.
  • Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.6, Haiku 4.5, and all current Claude series models.
  • Google: Lyria 3 Pro, Gemini 3.1 Pro/Flash, and all other Gemini/Vertex native models.
    • Accepts Google AI Studio API keys starting with AIza and Vertex AI Express API keys starting with AQ..
    • Tip: New Google Cloud accounts can claim $300 in free credits to use with Vertex AI (this does not apply to Google AI Studio).
  • xAI: Grok 4.20 (including Multi-Agent Beta), Grok Code Fast, and all recent releases.
• Aggregators: Connect to OpenRouter and Venice AI for expansive and uncensored decentralized open-source options.

This list highlights current featured models only. You can access hundreds of additional models dynamically synced via via your configured API keys.

Benefits of BYOK:

• Lower Platform Fees: You pay the provider directly for API usage, but you still pay a reduced platform software fee to VTX Macro per inference (1.0x multiplier of raw model costs, instead of the standard 2.0x). You must maintain a positive VTX Macro credit balance.
• Higher Rate Limits: Use your own tier limits.
• Privacy: Execution-mode dependent. In server execution mode, prompts go from VTX Macro's backend to the provider. In client execution mode, prompts go directly from your browser runtime to the provider while the server remains sync-only for runtime lifecycle, audit, and persistence.

Local AI (Ollama, LM Studio, llmster)

The Local AI card on the System page lets you connect a browser-owned OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as Ollama, LM Studio, or llmster.

Important rules:

• Local AI requires Client Mode for the active profile.
• The recommended Base URL is always loopback on the same device as the browser.
• Common defaults:
  • LM Studio / llmster: http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1
  • Ollama: http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1
• Use Test & Refresh to read the server's GET /v1/models list into the model dropdown.
• For Ollama, keep the full returned tag when present, for example my-local-model:latest.
• Apply saves the Local AI endpoint and makes that Local AI model the active selection on the AI page.
• If the endpoint returns only one model, VTX Macro preselects it during Test & Refresh.

Quick start

1. Install and start your local server.
2. Use the matching loopback URL in VTX Macro.
3. Run Test & Refresh and pick the returned model from the dropdown.
4. Click Apply to save the profile and switch the active AI model to that Local AI model.

Examples:

• LM Studio: http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1
• llmster: http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1
• Ollama: http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1

For llmster in browser Client Mode, a working startup command is:

lms server start --bind 127.0.0.1 --port 1234 --cors

For Ollama, a practical flow is:

ollama pull qwen3:8b
curl http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1/models

If you already have a GGUF file and want Ollama to serve that exact model, create a Modelfile:

FROM C:\path\to\your-model.gguf

Then import it:

ollama create my-local-model -f Modelfile

Ollama normally exposes browser-usable loopback CORS headers already, so it does not usually need an LM Studio-style --cors startup flag.

Loopback Forwarding for Another LAN Machine

Keep VTX Macro pointed at localhost / 127.0.0.1 on the browser device and run a local TCP forwarder on that same device. The browser should not depend on arbitrary LAN IP targets directly.

This means:

• The remote machine runs Ollama, LM Studio, or llmster.
• VTX Macro still uses loopback locally.
• The user's device forwards the local port to the LAN machine.

Why VTX Macro still uses loopback

VTX Macro's hosted app runs in a secure browser context over HTTPS. Modern browsers treat direct requests from an HTTPS page to a private LAN HTTP address such as http://192.168.x.x:1234 as restricted mixed-content / private-network traffic. Depending on the browser, that can be blocked outright or require extra CORS and private-network headers that many local model servers do not provide.

Loopback addresses such as 127.0.0.1 and localhost are treated specially by browsers and are the most reliable way to connect Local AI from Client Mode. This is a browser security boundary, not an app setting that VTX Macro can disable.

Example topology

• Browser / VTX device: your main desktop or laptop running the VTX Macro tab.
• Model server device: another PC on your LAN running LM Studio, Ollama, or llmster.
• Remote model server example: <remote-lan-ip>:1234
• Local loopback forward example: 127.0.0.1:1235 -> <remote-lan-ip>:1234
• VTX Base URL: http://127.0.0.1:1235/v1

You can keep port 1234 on the remote machine. If 1234 is already used on the browser device, choose another local port such as 1235 for the forwarder.

Windows loopback setup

If you have Administrator access, Windows has a built-in TCP forwarder:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 listenport=1235 connectaddress=<remote-lan-ip> connectport=1234

Check the rule:

netsh interface portproxy show all

Test it:

curl http://127.0.0.1:1235/v1/models

Remove it later if needed:

netsh interface portproxy delete v4tov4 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 listenport=1235

macOS loopback setup

Install socat if it is not already available, then forward a local loopback port to the LAN machine:

brew install socat
socat TCP-LISTEN:1235,bind=127.0.0.1,fork TCP:<remote-lan-ip>:1234

Test it:

curl http://127.0.0.1:1235/v1/models

Keep the socat terminal running while you use VTX Macro.

Linux loopback setup

Most Linux distributions can use socat as well:

socat TCP-LISTEN:1235,bind=127.0.0.1,fork TCP:<remote-lan-ip>:1234

Test it:

curl http://127.0.0.1:1235/v1/models

Keep the socat process running while you use VTX Macro. If your distro does not include socat, install it from your package manager first.

Helper script overrides (Windows)

The helper scripts in scripts/ support environment-variable overrides for the remote target:

• SECOND_PC_LOCAL_AI_TARGET_HOST (or fallback LOCAL_AI_TARGET_HOST)
• SECOND_PC_LOCAL_AI_TARGET_PORT (or fallback LOCAL_AI_TARGET_PORT)

If none are set, they default to 127.0.0.1:1234.

What to enter in VTX Macro

After the forwarder is working, keep the Local AI card pointed at the local loopback URL on the browser device:

• http://127.0.0.1:1235/v1 for the forwarded remote machine example above
• http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1 if the model server is running on the same device as the browser

WebGPU

The WebGPU card on the System page lets you configure a browser-native local model that runs directly on your device's GPU.

• Client Mode only: WebGPU is available only when the active profile uses Client Mode.
• No API key required: Inference runs inside your browser tab instead of calling a cloud provider.
• Model selection: Choose a WebGPU-compatible model from the synced catalog or provide a supported custom model link when needed.
• Apply behavior: Apply saves the selected WebGPU model and switches the active AI page model to that WebGPU choice.
• Device limits apply: Browser VRAM and tab memory limits are stricter than native runtimes, so larger models and long prompts can fail even if they work in Ollama or LM Studio.
• Catalog floor: The synced WebGPU catalog excludes models below 4000 tokens of inferred context window.

Use WebGPU when you want the simplest private local setup with no separate server process. If you need larger context windows, heavier models, or more stable long-running inference, use Local AI instead.

For model recommendations and deeper sizing guidance, see AI Configuration.

User Profile

Manage your public identity on the platform.

• Handle: Your unique @username (e.g., @trader-alpha). This is visible on public leaderboards and shared analysis links. You can change this periodically.
• Identity: Displays your registered email and account role.

Regional Settings

• Timezone: Configure the display timezone for all charts, logs, and timestamps.
  • Auto: Detects your browser's timezone.
  • Manual: Force a specific timezone (e.g., UTC) for consistent reporting.

Trading Interface & AI

The Trade Dashboard

The Trade page is your command center for both manual execution and AI supervision. It combines professional-grade charting with direct exchange execution and AI controls.

1. Market Overview & Charting

• Asset Selector: Use the dropdown in the top-left to switch between markets (e.g., BTC, ETH, SOL). It displays real-time price, 24h change, and volume to help you identify liquid markets.
• Advanced Chart: A fully interactive candlestick chart with adjustable timeframes (1m to 1w) and drawing tools. Your chart settings and drawings are saved automatically per profile.
• Customizable Layout: You can resize the Chart, Order Entry, and Bottom Panel sections to suit your workflow.

2. Manual Order Entry

The right-hand panel allows for precise manual execution:

• Order Types:
  • Market: Execute immediately at the best available price.
  • Limit: Set a specific limit price. Supports TIF (Time in Force) options like GTC, IOC, and ALO (Post-Only).
  • Pro: Access advanced algorithmic orders including Scale (laddering), TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price), Stop-Limit, and Stop-Market.
• Leverage: specific leverage slider. Note: This leverage setting applies to both manual trades AND AI trades for this symbol.
• Size Inputs: Enter trade size in either Coin (e.g., 0.5 BTC) or USDC (e.g., $5,000).
• Risk Tools:
  • Reduce Only: Ensures the order will only reduce or close an open position, never increase it.
  • TP/SL: specific Take Profit and Stop Loss triggers before placing the entry.

3. Position Management

The bottom panel gives you full visibility into your account state:

• Positions Tab: View all active open positions, including Entry Price, Mark Price, Unrealized PnL, and Liquidation Price.
  • Actions: "Close Market" (instant exit), "Close Limit" (queued exit), "Edit Leverage", and "Edit TP/SL".
• Open Orders: View and cancel working limit orders.
• Trade History: A log of your recent fills and executions.
• Funding: Track funding fee payments and receipts.

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AI Assistant

The AI Assistant acts as a "dry run" for the AI Trader. It runs the same analysis logic as the automated trader but does not execute any trades.

Execution mode matters: In Server Mode, the AI Assistant analyzes the market securely on the backend servers and can continue running in the background after you close the browser. In Client Mode, the browser owns the analysis logic entirely on your device, meaning the Assistant only runs while your active browser session keeps control.

This allows you to see exactly what the AI would do in the current market conditions without risking capital. You can activate it by toggling the AI Assistant switch on the Trade page (top right panel).

AI Trader

The automated execution side of the system relies on the same logic but connects directly to your active Trading Profile. It is designed with robust safety measures to protect your capital and active sessions:

• Intelligent Pauses: In the event that an AI provider's network goes down (e.g., a "503 Service Unavailable" error) or you hit a temporary rate limit ("429"), the AI will automatically pause and display a clear warning banner. Crucially, the AI will not crash or halt indefinitely; it will intelligently retry running the analysis loop automatically instead. To start the AI Trader:

1. Ensure your Hyperliquid API key is connected.
2. Configure your strategy settings (Model, Risk, Prompts) on the AI page.
3. Go to the Trade dashboard.
4. Click the Start button inside the AI Trader panel.

Server Execution Mode: The AI Trader securely executes your strategy on the backend servers. Once started, it continues analyzing and trading 24/7, even if you close your browser, log out, or turn off your device, until you explicitly click Stop.

Client Execution Mode: The AI Trader runs entirely inside your web browser. This local execution mode keeps your keys strictly on your device and sends all provider/exchange logic securely from your browser. Client mode has no guaranteed uptime or background daemon, but it provides best-effort auto-resume after a tab/browser restart if the bot was active before closing and the same profile/session context is restored. Since the browser manages the bot, it uses a single-master model; if you open the tab on another device, you can instantly take control of the AI Trader from that new device.

Mode transparency: Whether running on the backend Server or in your local Client browser, decision logging, history, and active performance display look and feel the same. Execution safety logic remains identical across platforms.

The AI Trader will now execute trades automatically based on your configuration. Monitor the "Open Orders" and "Trade History" panels to see the AI in action.

Risk, Size & Leverage

VTX Macro keeps your automated trading defaults consistent across the platform:

• AI Trade Amount (USDC): The notional size used for AI Trader orders. This is stored separately from your manual Trade page order size, so you can tune automation without affecting your one-off trades.
• Leverage / Max Leverage: Your selected leverage is shared between the AI and Trade pages so you don't end up running automation at one leverage while placing manual orders at another.
• Platform Cap: Leverage is capped at 40x (or the asset's specific limit) to ensure safety. If any setting reports a higher value, VTX Macro will clamp it back to the allowed maximum. The default recommended leverage is 2x.

Note: AI settings may auto-save with a short debounce. Once saved, other pages refresh the updated preference automatically.

Understanding the AI Control Panel

The panel displays your current Active Configuration during runtime:

• Assets: List of symbols being monitored (e.g., BTC, ETH).
• Timeframes: Active intervals and candle lookback counts (e.g., 5m (25) = 25 candles of 5m data).

Max Trades Counter (Visible only when AI Trader is Active):

• Used: Current number of "units" engaged in open positions.
• Max: Your configured "Max Trades Global" limit.
• Updates: Refreshes instantly on every AI execution cycle.

AI Models & Reliability

VTX Macro uses advanced AI models (like Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT 5.2) to analyze the market. Sometimes, a specific model may be unavailable due to high demand (Rate Limits).

Smart Fallback System If your preferred model encounters an error (e.g., 429 Rate Limit), the system automatically attempts to use a backup model to ensure your analysis continues without interruption.

• Indicator: Look for the Amber colored badge and 🔀 shuffle icon in the AI log.
• Hover Tooltip: Hover over the badge to see exactly which model was requested and which one was used (e.g., "Fallback: Requested Gemini-3.1-Pro").
• Configured Cascades (Examples):
  • Claude Sonnet: 4.6 → 4.5 → 4.0
  • Claude Opus: 4.6 → 4.5 → 4.1
  • Gemini Pro: 3.1 Pro → 3 Pro → 2.5 Pro
• Seamless: This happens automatically in the background. No action is required from you.

Local AI exception: When you select a model from the Local AI group, VTX Macro treats that local model as authoritative in Client Mode. It will not silently fall back to a cloud model or accept a non-local model override during runtime.

Multi-Asset Selection

You can configure the AI to monitor and trade multiple assets simultaneously using the Asset Selector on the AI page.

• Click the assets input to open the selection menu.
• Select assets to monitor (up to 3).
• Use the sorting options (Volume, Price, Change) to find liquid markets.
• The AI will analyze ALL selected assets in every execution cycle.

Operating Schedule

You can restrict autonomous trading to specific hours or market sessions (e.g., NY/London overlap) using the Schedule settings on the AI page.

• Active Windows: Define specific day and time ranges. Outside these times, the AI status becomes Paused.
• Timezone: Align windows with your local time or major market centers.
• Presets: Quickly load standard sessions (e.g., "EU + US", "24/5 Weekdays") from the preset dropdown.
• Close on Stop (Trader Only): Optionally force the AI to close all open positions when a schedule window ends.

Troubleshooting

If you are having issues starting the AI Assistant or AI Trader, please try disabling your VPN and/or ad blocker. These tools can sometimes interfere with the connection.

If you are using Local AI with Ollama, LM Studio, or llmster:

• Keep the profile in Client Mode.
• Prefer a loopback browser target on the same device:
  • LM Studio / llmster: http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1
  • Ollama: http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1
• If the local server is running on another LAN machine, use a local forwarder on the browser device and still keep VTX Macro pointed at loopback. See the Local AI loopback setup.

Optional: Windows Boot Auto-Launch for Client Mode

Client mode runs in your browser tab. If you want best-effort recovery after Windows reboot/login, you can auto-launch Chrome with a pinned VTX Macro Trade URL.

This setup is not needed if your profile is in Server Mode. Opening or closing the browser window does not affect the Server Mode bot, and only an explicit Start or Stop command can change its state.

Preconditions:

• You are logged into Windows for the scheduled task trigger.
• Your VTX Macro auth session is still valid in that browser profile.
• You already selected the target profile in VTX Macro.
• Browser startup policy allows auto-opening the requested URL.

Task Scheduler Setup (Windows):

1. Open Task Scheduler and choose Create Task.
2. In General:
   • Set a name such as VTX Macro Client Resume.
   • Choose Run only when user is logged on.
3. In Triggers:
   • Add trigger At log on for your user.
4. In Actions:
   • Program/script: C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
   • Add arguments: --new-window https://vtxmacro.com/trade
5. Save the task and run it once manually to validate.

Client mode auto-resume and boot caveats:

• This is best-effort only: it does not create a background daemon or guaranteed uptime.
• Auto-resume only applies when runtime intent was active before close/restart.
• Auto-resume is skipped when execution mode is not client or profile context does not match persisted intent.
• Ownership lease arbitration remains authoritative; another active owner window/device prevents duplicate local starts.
• Startup retries are bounded with cooldown to avoid infinite failure loops; if resume is still skipped, open Trade and manually start once after resolving config/auth issues.
• If your organization hardens browser startup policies, review Chrome policy restrictions for command-line URL launches.

AI Configuration

The AI page is the brain of your VTX Macro system. This is where you define how the AI thinks, what it trades, and the strict risk limits it must follow.

Tip: You can save different setups as Snapshots (e.g., "Bull Market Aggressive", "Weekend Conservative") to switch strategies instantly.

Model & Intelligence

Choose the brain that powers your trader.

• Preferred Model: Select the specific AI model (e.g., GPT-5.4, Claude Sonnet 4.6, Gemini 3.1 Pro, Lyria 3, Groq Llama 3).
  • Models are dynamically synced and grouped as Direct (native providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Groq) vs Aggregators (OpenRouter, Venice AI).
  • If your profile has Local AI configured, an additional Local AI group appears in the selector.
  • The "Other Models" unified dropdown allows multi-sort, text search, and filtering exclusively by available BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) connections.
• Dynamic Reasoning Controls: Take control over how the AI "thinks" for compatible reasoning models.
  • Effort Levels: Quickly toggle between Low, Medium, and High reasoning efforts for OpenRouter and Groq models.
  • Thinking Budgets: Set strict token budget limits for models like Gemini 2.5 Pro to manage exactly how much computational effort the AI spends.
    • The -1 preset requests provider-managed adaptive budget behavior where supported.
    • Leaving all budget presets unselected sends no explicit budget override and uses provider default behavior.
  • Toggle Options: Easily disable advanced thinking steps entirely for Venice AI models, streamlining output for situations where speed is the priority over deep deliberation.
• Models are strictly filtered to a minimum system context window requirements of 16000 tokens.
  • Recommendation: Start with Gemini 3 Flash for a balance of reasoning speed and cost.
• Cost Tracking: The panel shows the average cost per run, helping you budget your balance.
• Use My Averages: Toggle this to see costs based on your specific usage history rather than global platform averages.

Local AI model selection

• Local AI is the recommended approach for high-performance offline inference. If you want larger context windows, higher speeds, and stability for local models, run them via a Local AI server (e.g., LM Studio, Ollama) rather than WebGPU.
• Local AI models are available only when the profile is configured for Client Mode.
• The System page loads your local endpoint's GET /v1/models results into a dropdown. Click Apply there to save the endpoint and switch the active AI model to that Local AI choice.
• For Ollama, keep the full returned model tag, such as :latest, if it appears in GET /v1/models.
• When a Local AI model is selected, VTX Macro does not allow automatic cloud fallback takeover. The local model remains authoritative for Client Mode runtime.
• Recommended Base URLs:
  • LM Studio / llmster: http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1
  • Ollama: http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1

WebGPU model selection

• WebGPU runs AI models natively inside your browser using your local device's graphics card. The synced catalog is filtered to models with at least 4000 tokens of inferred context window.
• What this means in practice: The 4000 value is a catalog floor, not a browser-side maximum. Actual usable prompt size still depends on the selected model, browser memory limits, and your device's available VRAM.
• Use the System page to pick a WebGPU model, then click Apply to persist it and switch the active AI page model to that WebGPU selection.
• To avoid browser tab crashes, we strongly recommend these pre-compiled models (-q4f16_1-MLC or -q4f32_1-MLC quantization) based on your hardware:
  • Balanced / Recommended (3–4GB VRAM): Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct-q4f16_1-MLC or Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct-q4f16_1-MLC. Fit comfortably in most modern browsers.
  • Maximum Capability (6–8GB+ VRAM): Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-q4f16_1-MLC or DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-8B-q4f16_1-MLC. Only use these with a dedicated modern desktop GPU (NVIDIA RTX or Apple Silicon M-series).
  • Maximum Speed / Low VRAM (<2GB VRAM): Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-q4f16_1-MLC or Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct-q4f16_1-MLC. Best for older laptops or integrated graphics.
• Tip: If a model fails to initialize, text generation freezes, or you are running into context limits due to large market data payloads, you must switch to a standalone Local AI server instead of WebGPU.

Market Analysis Scope

Define the data the AI "sees" when making a decision.

• Trading Symbols: The assets the AI is allowed to monitor and trade (e.g., BTC, ETH, SOL).
• Timeframes: The chart intervals analyzed (e.g., 5m, 1h, 4h).
• Lookback: How many past candles are sent to the model for each timeframe (configured per timeframe in config.toml, e.g., 48 for 1h).
• Technical Indicators: Enabling these pre-calculates values like RSI, MACD, or Bollinger Bands and feeds them to the AI numerically.

Trading Limits & Frequency

Control the pace and size of the automation.

• Loop Interval: How often the AI runs its analysis (e.g., every 60 seconds by default).
• Trade Amount: The size (in USDC) of each position opened by the AI.
• Max Trades: Hard limits to prevent over-exposure:
  • Global: Max total open positions across all assets.
  • Per Asset: Max open positions for a single symbol.
  • Per Prompt: Max limit orders generated in a single cycle.

Safe Mode (Risk Management)

Automated safety nets that apply to every AI trade.

• Stop Loss / Take Profit: Automatically attach TP/SL orders to every entry.
  • Fixed %: Set a static percentage distance (e.g., SL -2%, TP +6%).
  • AI Dynamic: If enabled, the AI can suggest its own targets based on support/resistance levels.
• Performance Guardrails: Advanced risk controls (like Max Drawdown %) that monitor the AI's trading behavior and halt trading if your current account equity drops from its peak beyond configured thresholds. See Advanced Features for details.

Operations & Scheduling

• Killswitch: An emergency circuit breaker.
  • Threshold: If your current account equity drops from its highest peak by X% within your configured look-back window (e.g., Y hours), the system halts.
  • Action: Optionally close all open positions immediately upon trigger.
• Schedule: Restrict trading to specific hours (e.g., 09:00 - 16:00 London Time).
• Calendar Filters: Prevent trading during high-impact news events (e.g., FOMC, CPI) by defining a "no-trade zone" buffer (e.g., 60 mins before, 30 mins after).

Prompts (The "Persona")

You have full access to the prompt text sent to the AI.

• System Prompt: Defines the AI's core identity and rules. (e.g., "You are a conservative macro trader...").
• User Prompt: The template used to present market data.
• Advanced: You can edit these to enforce specific behaviors, like "Never trade against the 1-hour trend" or "Focus heavily on volume anomalies."

Review Model (Dual-Layer Analysis)

The Review Model acts as a "second opinion" for your AI trader. It allows you to configure a separate, potentially more powerful or specialized AI model to critique and validate the primary model's trading decisions before they are executed.

How It Works

1. Primary Analysis: The main AI model analyzes the market and proposes a trade (e.g., "BUY BTC").
2. Trigger Check: The system checks if the proposed decision matches your Review Triggers (e.g., only review "BUY" and "SELL", but ignore "HOLD").
3. Review Process: If triggered, the Review Model receives the primary model's reasoning and the same market data. It acts as a risk manager or senior trader.
4. Final Verdict: The Review Model can:
   • Confirm the trade.
   • Reject the trade (turning it into a "HOLD").
   • Modify the trade (e.g., reduce the size).

Note on Client-Side Execution: The robust dual-stage "Reviewer" architecture natively runs even in local/client-side execution modes, ensuring strict trading safety across all executing environments.

Model Label Semantics

• + means a Review Model was used (primary + reviewer).
• -> means a fallback model was used (requested -> actual).
• Both can appear together when fallback and review both occur in the same run.

Configuration

To enable the Review Model, navigate to the Advanced or AI Settings panel.

Core Settings

• Enable Review Model: Toggles the feature on/off.
• Review Model: Select the specific LLM to use for reviews.
  • Recommendation: Use a "Reasoning" model like o1-preview or Gemini 1.5 Pro for the review layer, even if your primary model is a faster "Flash" model.
• Triggers: Choose which decisions trigger a review.
  • Common Setup: Review BUY and SELL, but let HOLD pass through instantly.

Parameters

• Temperature: Controls the creativity of the reviewer (default: 1.0 for strict logic).
• Max Tokens: Limit the length of the review output.
• Timeout: Maximum time in seconds to wait for the review (default: 90s).

Custom Prompts

Just like the primary trader, the Review Model has its own customizable prompts.

System Prompt

Defines the persona of the reviewer.

• Default: "You are a senior risk manager. Your job is to critique the proposed trade..."

User Prompt

The template for the data sent to the reviewer. It typically includes:

• The Primary Decision (BUY/SELL/HOLD).
• The Primary Reasoning (Why the first model wanted to trade).
• The Market Data (Price, indicators, etc.).

Cost Implications

Using a Review Model essentially doubles the API calls for triggered trades.

• If you review every decision, your costs will double.
• If you only review BUY/SELL (and the bot mostly HOLDS), the extra cost is minimal.

VTX Insights - Market Chat & Analysis

Insights is your holistic trading co-pilot. It combines RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) on your private data with real-time market access, web search, and platform documentation.

Scope of Knowledge

Insights is not just a chatbot; it is an agent with access to four distinct "brains":

1. Your Trading Data (Deep Memory)

It has direct SQL access to your entire trade history, fills, and account snapshots.

• Ask: "Analyze my PnL distribution for last month."
• Ask: "Show me the last 5 times I traded SOL."

2. Live Market Intelligence (Real-Time)

It can see the current market state (Prices, Volatility, Order Flow) in real-time.

• Ask: "Is the market trending or choppy right now?"
• Ask: "What is the current funding rate on ETH?"

3. Web Search (Google Grounding)

It can search the live internet for news, macro events, and fundamentals.

• Ask: "Why is crypto down today?"
• Ask: "Summarize the FOMC meeting minutes released an hour ago."

4. Platform Knowledge Base (The Manual)

It has read this documentation and knows how VTX Macro works.

• Ask: "How do I set up a Trailing Stop?"
• Ask: "Explain the difference between Hard and Soft mode in market regime."

5. General Trading Knowledge (The Tutor)

It is an expert on general trading concepts, technical indicators, and market theory.

• Ask: "What is Implied Volatility and how does it affect options?"
• Ask: "Explain the formula for RSI."

Core Capabilities

1. Trade Post-Mortems

Analyze specific trades to understand execution quality and decision logic.

• "Why did my long on BTC lose money yesterday?"
• "Analyze slippage on my last 10 ETH market orders."
• "Was my stop loss placement too aggressive on the SOL trade?"

The system retrieves the relevant execution data and uses an LLM to analyze the trade in context.

2. Performance Coaching

Insights acts as a neutral observer of your trading behavior, helping you identify psychological pitfalls.

• "Am I revenge trading after big losses?"
• "Do I tend to oversize positions during low volatility?"
• "Review my discipline: did I stick to my plan this week?"

3. Strategy Refinement

Use the chat to brainstorm and stress-test new ideas.

• "Based on current market structure, is a mean-reversion strategy viable?"
• "Suggest improvements for my breakout entry criteria."

4. AI Bot Generation

Insights can act as your strategy architect, generating full AI trading bot configurations dynamically from natural language.

• "Generate a mean-reversion bot for SOL and ETH on 15m timeframes."
• "Create a high-frequency scalping setup with strict risk management."
• "Design a bot that uses an AI Review model to double-check trades."

When you make these requests, Insights outputs an interactive Settings Snapshot Card directly in the chat. This card includes:

• Paginated Analysis: Detailed configuration breakdowns across Risk Management, Timeframes, AI Models, and Custom Prompts.
• Direct Save: Click the Bookmark / Save Snapshot button on the card to instantly save the bot configuration to your Snapshots Library.
• Immediate Deployment: You can then load this snapshot onto your live or paper trading profiles straight from the Dashboard.

Advanced Chat Features

The Insights interface is built for professional workflows, supporting more than just simple exchange.

Multi-Model Support

Choose the right tool for the job. You can select different AI models for each conversation:

• Reasoning Models (e.g., Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT 5.2): Best for complex post-mortems and deep strategic analysis.
• Speed Models (e.g., Gemini 3 Flash Preview, GPT 5.2 Chat Latest): Best for quick queries or simple data lookups. Lower cost and faster response time.

Streaming Responses & Real-Time Cost

• Live Streaming: Responses are streamed token-by-token for immediate feedback.
• Cost Transparency: See the exact cost of each query (in VTX credits) and detailed latency metrics immediately after generation.

Session History & Management

• Auto-Save: All conversations are saved automatically.
• Rename/Delete: Organize your research by renaming sessions or deleting obsolete ones.
• Search: Quickly find past analyses in the sidebar.

Rewind & Branching

VTX Macro supports non-linear conversation flows:

• Edit Previous Messages: If you want to change a prompt you sent 5 messages ago, simply edit it.
• Auto-Truncate: The system will automatically "rewind" the memory to that point and generate a new response, effectively creating a new branch of the conversation without needing to start over.

Sharing Analysis

Share your findings with teammates or social media:

• Public Links: Generate a read-only public link for any chat session.
• Privacy First: Shared links only show the conversation text. Sensitive account details (like API keys or specific wallet balances) are never exposed, though trade details mentioned in the chat will be visible.

Data Privacy & Billing

Billing

Insights usage is billed on a per-token basis.

• You pay only for what you use.
• Complex queries with large amounts of trade context will cost more than simple questions.
• Costs are displayed in real-time.

Data Security

• Your trade data is indexed for the RAG system but is strictly siloed to your account.
• Data is sent to the LLM provider (e.g., Google/OpenAI) only when you actively ask a question that requires it.
• Your data is never used to train public models.

Platform Features & Configuration

The following section covers the core platform settings, defaults, and analysis tools available in VTX Macro.

Global Platform Defaults

The following values represent the server-side default configuration. These settings are used as the baseline for the AI Trader unless overridden by your personal strategy settings.

AI Execution

• Default Model: gemini-3-flash-preview
• Max Tokens: 8192
• Loop Interval: 60s
• Timeout: 90s
• Trade Amount: $20

Trading Safety & Defaults

• Max Trades (Global): 10
• Max Trades (Per Asset): 10
• Max Trades (Per Prompt): 10
• Max Slippage: 8.0%
• Leverage: 2x (Max 40x)
• Margin Mode: Cross

Small Account Optimization

For accounts with small balances ($10-50), Isolated Margin operations can sometimes fail due to exchange-level dust limits and collateral fragmentation. To ensure your leverage updates always succeed, the system employs an Auto-Recovery mechanism: If an Isolated Margin update fails due to insufficient margin/balance, the system automatically retries the request using Cross Margin. This ensures you can always adjust your leverage without manual intervention, even on small accounts.

Snapshots & Sharing

Snapshots allow you to save your entire AI strategy configuration (Model, Prompts, Parameters) into a reusable profile. This is useful for switching between different trading personalities (e.g., "Conservative Scalper" vs "Aggressive Trend Follower").

How Snapshots Work

• Save: Click the "Save" icon in the Snapshot menu to store your current settings.
• Match: The system automatically detects if your current settings match an existing snapshot or the system defaults.
• Sync: When a matching snapshot is found, it is automatically selected, helping you keep track of your active strategy.

Sharing & Importing

You can share your strategy updates with other users or discover successful strategies from the community.

1. Leaderboard: Browse the Leaderboard to find top-performing users. Click the Copy icon next to a trader's name to instantly import their latest snapshot.
2. Direct Import: Alternatively, search for a specific user by their @handle or Wallet Address in the "Copy User" menu on the AI page.
3. Activating: After importing, the snapshot appears in your library. Select it, then click the Reset button (counter-clockwise arrow) in relevant panels (e.g., Model, Prompts) to apply the settings.
4. Modifying: Once loaded, you can tweak the settings to fit your needs and save it as your own version.

Decision History

The History page provides a complete, searchable log of all AI trading decisions and analysis. This is your primary tool for auditing the AI's behavior over time, including both executed trades and "HOLD" decisions.

Features & Filtering

• Search Reasoning: Quickly find specific decisions by searching for keywords within the AI's reasoning text (e.g., "RSI", "bullish", "liquidation").
• Timeframe: Filter decisions by the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, or view all history.
• Decisions: Toggle between BUY, SELL, and HOLD decisions to isolate specific actions.
• Model & Overrides:
  • Filter by the specific AI model used for the decision.
  • Check Review to see decisions that were processed by the Review Model.
  • Check Fallback to see decisions where the primary model failed and the Fallback Model took over.
• Units: Use the slider to filter decisions based on the number of units traded.

History Feed

Each entry in the history feed displays:

• Timestamp & Model: When the decision was made and which model made it.
• Latency & Cost: The time it took for the AI to respond and the cost of the prompt.
• Reasoning: The full natural-language explanation generated by the AI, which includes the final decision.

Clicking on any history card that contains an analysis key will open the detailed Trade Analysis page for that specific decision.

Trade Analysis & Decision Transparency

VTX Macro provides complete transparency into every action the AI takes. The Trade Analysis page allows you to inspect the exact "thought process" behind any AI decision, whether it resulted in a trade or a "HOLD".

Accessing Analysis

• Trade History: Click the Sparkles icon next to the timestamp on any trade row.
• AI Logs: Click on any log entry in the AI Activity feed to view the decision context.

Decision Context

• Trade Details: The precise execution price, size, fees, and PnL for the resulting trade (if execution occurred).
• Model Info: The specific AI model used, response latency, and cost.
• Reasoning: The full natural-language explanation generated by the AI (e.g., "Holding because RSI is overbought").
• Technical Inspection: AI Configuration, System Prompt, and raw User Prompt.

Interactive Chat

Every analysis page includes a dedicated Chat Interface. This allows you to interact with the specific historical context of that decision.

• Ask Follow-ups: "Why did you think the trend was bearish here?"
• Challenge Decisions: "Given the RSI was 30, shouldn't you have bought?"
• Memory: The AI replies using the PAST state data it had at that exact moment.

Sharing Decisions

Found an interesting trade or a learning moment? Click the Share button on any Analysis page to generate a public link.

Analytics & Performance

The Analytics page provides a comprehensive dashboard to visualize and understand your trading performance over time.

Key Metrics

• Total PnL: Your net profit or loss for the selected period.
• Win Rate: The percentage of profitable trades.
• Profit Factor: The ratio of Total Net Profit to Total Net Loss (> 1.0 is profitable).
• Trades: Total number of executed trades.
• Volume: Total trading volume generated.
• Avg Trade: Average PnL per trade.
• Fees Paid: Total trading fees incurred.

Visualizations

• Equity Curve: A chart showing the growth (or decline) of your account balance over time. This helps visualize consistency and drawdown.
• PnL Distribution: A bar chart (histogram) showing the distribution of your trade results. It helps identify if your profits come from many small wins or fewer large wins, and how your losses are distributed.

Public Profiles

Every user has a public analytics profile accessible via their username or wallet address (e.g., /analytics/@username). You can view transparency insights and performance history for any trader on the platform.

Reports & Taxes

The Report page provides tools to automatically generate tax documents tailored to your trading activity across your profile.

Generating Documents

• Tax Year: Isolate all trade data to a specific, complete calendar year.
• Timezone Selection: The platform uses your designated timezone to calculate exact end-of-year boundaries, ensuring no offset trades bleed into the wrong tax year.
• CSV Export: Produce a clean, formatted CSV download detailing your execution prices, sizes, trading fees, and realized PnL for the selected period.

Billing & Payments

VTX Macro operates on a subscription or usage-based model. All payments are securely processed via Stripe. You can manage your subscription, view invoices, and update payment methods on the Billing page. Ensure your account is funded or has an active subscription to maintain uninterrupted access to AI trading features.

Usage & Pricing Multipliers

Billing panels include per-user cost tracking. Administrators can leverage the Admin Models Management Interface to enforce system-wide dynamic database metadata for API key availability, LLM sync filtering, and user cost-multiplier scaling directly onto the app's billing endpoints.

Leaderboard & Rankings

The Leaderboard ranks users based on their trading performance across multiple timeframes (24h, 7d, 30d, All Time). To provide a complete and accurate picture of a trader's current standing, the platform's performance metrics are calculated holistically.

ROI and PnL Calculations

• Total PnL: The Profit and Loss (PnL) displayed on the leaderboard is the sum of both Realized and Unrealized PnL.
  • Realized PnL: Profits or losses from historically closed positions.
  • Unrealized PnL: Current floating profits or losses from active, open positions.
• ROI (Return on Investment): The ROI percentage is calculated using the net PnL (Realized + Unrealized) relative to the starting account balance for the given timeframe, adjusted for deposits and withdrawals. This ensures that holding open positions (whether in profit or drawdown) is accurately reflected in a trader's rank and prevents artificial manipulation of stats by hiding unrealized losses.
• Trades & Volume: The leaderboard also displays the total number of executed trades and total trading volume generated during the timeframe.

Advanced Strategies & Risk Management

This section covers advanced configuration for scaling, automated coaching, and event-based risk controls.

Multi-Trade Execution & Scaling

The AI Trader supports advanced position management strategies, allowing it to scale in and out of positions. This behavior is controlled by three key settings in the AI page:

Max Trades Global (Portfolio Safety)

Limits the total number of concurrent open positions across ALL selected assets.

• Prevents over-exposure.
• If set to 1, AI only trades one asset at a time.
• Example: Set to 3 → AI can hold BTC, ETH, and SOL positions simultaneously.

Max Trades Per Asset (Scale In Limit)

Controls the maximum number of units the AI can hold for a single specific asset.

• Allows Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA).
• Stops buying when limit reached.
• Example: Set to 5 → AI can hold up to 5 separate entries of BTC.

Max Trades Per Prompt (Execution Speed)

Controls the max number of units the AI can add or reduce in a single execution cycle.

• Acts as a "speed limit".
• Higher values allow faster entry/exit.
• Example: Set to 2 → AI can buy 2 units at once if conviction is high.

Strategy Examples

• Slow Accumulation: Set Max Trades Per Asset to 10 and Max Trades Per Prompt to 1. The AI will build a position slowly, adding at most 1 unit per cycle.
• Aggressive Trading: Set Max Trades Per Asset to 3 and Max Trades Per Prompt to 3. The AI can go from 0 to full size in a single trade if the signal is strong.

Market Regime & Performance Guardrails

The system acts as a real-time coach and risk manager for the AI. It analyzes both your account's trading habits (Performance) and the current market state (Regime) to inject context directly into the AI's prompt via two key variables: {performance} and {market_regime}.

Performance Panel ({performance})

The Performance Panel monitors HOW the AI is trading to prevent inefficient behavior. It provides an "Internal" view of the trader's recent actions over two distinct time horizons: Short-Term (e.g., 6h) and Long-Term (e.g., 24h). This data is injected into the prompt via the {performance} variable.

• Directional Flip Rate: Detects over-trading in chop. If the AI acts indecisively (e.g., Long -> Short -> Long in minutes), it triggers a warning.
• Median Hold Time: Ensures trades are given time to play out. Detects "scalping noise" where the AI exits before a thesis can mature.
• Fee to Equity % (Fee Burn): Calculates the total trading fees paid as a percentage of your total account equity over the rolling window. If the strategy is churning and burning capital on fees, it forces a slowdown to preserve capital. (Note: The system uses an institutional-grade FIFO matching engine to accurately track roundtrip trades, partial fills, and complex scaling in/out strategies for all performance metrics).
• Max Drawdown %: Acts as a critical safety tripwire. It uses a Peak-to-Current calculation to measure dynamic account loss. The system continuously tracks your highest total account equity (including both realized and unrealized PnL) during your configured look-back window. If your current equity drops from that peak by the specified percentage threshold, it forces the AI to reduce risk or halts trading entirely. This approach protects profits and quickly stops bleeding without relying on a static starting balance.
• Max Loss Count: Tracks repeated losing closes while the rolling window is net negative. Each losing close increments the count; once rolling net PnL recovers to breakeven or better, the count resets to 0. Threshold checks are inclusive (>=), so hitting the exact warning or critical value triggers that level immediately.

Prompt Injection:

{performance} will contain a JSON summary of these metrics for both time windows, plus a clear instruction if a threshold is breached (e.g., "WARNING: Flip Rate High (Short-Term). Stop reversing direction.").

Market Regime ({market_regime})

The Market Regime system analyzes MARKET CONDITIONS across all your selected timeframes. It provides an "External" view of the environment. This data is injected into the prompt via the {market_regime} variable.

• ADX (Trend Strength): Warns if the market is non-trending (Dead). Prevents breakout entries in ranges.
• Chop Index: Detects consolidation. Warns if price action is sideways and dangerous.
• ATR % (Volatility): Measures expected move size. Warns if the range is too small to cover fees.

Prompt Injection:

{market_regime} will contain a JSON summary of ADX/Chop/ATR for each asset, plus a synthesized instruction (e.g., "Market is CHOPPY. Avoid breakout strategies.").

Multi-Timeframe Sync

The system automatically synchronizes with your Candle Timeframes configuration.

• If you select 5m, 1h, and 4h candles, the Market Regime Engine analyzes ADX, Chop, and ATR for all three intervals.
• This allows the AI to see nuanced context (e.g., "The 5m chart is choppy and dangerous, but the 4h chart is in a strong uptrend").
• You do not need to configure a separate "Market Regime Timeframe"; it is fully automatic.

Enforcement Modes

Both systems support "Soft" and "Hard" enforcement modes:

• Soft Mode: Injects warnings as "Advice". The AI is told the flip rate is high but can decide to trade anyway if it sees a specific setup.
• Hard Mode: Injects warnings as "Prohibitions". If the Chop Index is high, the prompt explicitly says: "FORBIDDEN: Do not open new positions."

Calendar Risk Management

The Calendar Risk Management system allows you to control how the AI behaves during high-impact economic events (e.g., FOMC, CPI, NFP). By configuring these settings, you can prevent the AI from trading during volatile windows or use the events as advisory context.

Enforcement Modes

• Soft Mode: Events are provided to the AI as context/news. The AI knows the event is coming but retains full autonomy to trade the volatility if it sees a setup.
• Hard Mode: Strict lockout. The AI is forbidden from opening new positions during the configured risk window. It can only manage existing positions.

Risk Configuration

• Impact Levels: Select which events trigger the risk gate (High, Medium, Low, Holiday).
• Currencies: Filter by relevant economies (e.g., USD, EUR).
• Lookahead Window: Define how many minutes before (Pre-Buffer) and after (Post-Buffer) an event the risk rules apply.

Stale Data Protection

The system automatically checks the freshness of the economic calendar data before every AI execution cycle.

• If the calendar data is outdated (stale), the system will flag it and prevent the AI from making decisions based on incorrect event times.
• This ensures the AI never reacts to "ghost" events or misses a critical release due to data lag.

Mental Models & Coaching

This isn’t a control-theory problem, it’s closer to coaching. The knobs matter, but the language you use to frame intent often matters more, especially with an LLM that’s already competent.

A few hard truths:

1. This is art first, science second

Markets are non-stationary. Your bot isn’t optimizing a fixed function, it’s navigating ambiguity. Knobs assume:

• stable distributions
• clean thresholds
• repeatable regimes

Reality doesn’t give you that.

Talking to the model in the system prompt lets you:

• encode judgment
• express trade-offs
• bias behavior without brittle thresholds

That’s something sliders can’t do.

2. Why “just talking to it” works so well

LLMs are excellent at soft constraint satisfaction:

• “Be patient when movement is scarce”
• “Don’t get bored in chop”
• “Wait for expansion, don’t predict it”

Those instructions survive regime shifts far better than:

• “if chop > 53.0 then HOLD”

3. Knobs are for guardrails, not intelligence

Your current knobs are doing the right job:

• preventing obvious self-harm
• bounding risk
• limiting pathological behavior

They should never be the primary decision logic.

The system prompt is where you teach:

• what matters
• what to ignore
• what patience looks like

4. Why every bot ends up unique

Two people can use the same indicators and:

• one prints
• one bleeds

Because:

• what you emphasize
• what you forbid
• what you tolerate

…is different.

5. The only real mistake to avoid

Don’t keep tweaking the knobs to “fix” behavior that’s actually about intent misalignment.

If you find yourself endlessly adjusting sliders hoping to stop specific bad trades, you’re looking in the wrong place.

If the bot overtrades in chop, you fix that faster—and more robustly—by simply saying:

“Chop is a tax. Cash is a position.”

than by trying to find the "perfect" numerical setting.

Bottom line

• Knobs = safety rails
• Prompt = judgment
• Observation = feedback loop

The Tuning Lifecycle: Scientific & Surgical

Great traders treat their bots like science experiments, not slot machines. The goal is to be intentional: make one surgical change at a time and let the bot run long enough to gather significant data. Randomly turning dials every hour is a recipe for noise, not signal.

1. The Bleeder (Cut Fast)

If a bot executes consistently negative trades and bleeds PnL day after day, it is a bad configuration.

• Reality Check: It will not magically "get better" with more time.
• Action: Kill the profile or revert the settings immediately. Do not fall in love with a losing idea.

2. The Grinder (Tweak It)

If the bot makes trades but PnL hovers around break-even—some wins, some losses, mostly flat—it is promising. It survives the market but hasn't found its edge yet.

• Diagnosis: This is the prime candidate for optimization. Look at the losers: are stops too tight? Is it entering too late?
• Action: Make one small adjustment (e.g., widen stops by 1% or switch from Soft to Hard enforcement). Then wait 24-48 hours.

3. The Winner (Protect It)

If a bot has positive PnL over multiple days or weeks, it is a Winner.

• The Trap: The urge to "perfect" it is dangerous. Any change you make has a high probability of breaking the delicate balance that is working.
• Action: Be ultra-wary of changes. If you must experiment, clone the profile and test your "improvements" on the copy, leaving the original Winner to keep printing.

Disclaimer

Not Financial Advice: The content, tools, and algorithms provided by VTX Macro are for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing on this platform constitutes financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. You are solely responsible for your trading decisions.

Risk Warning: Cryptocurrency trading, especially with leverage, involves a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. You could lose some or all of your initial investment. Do not trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

No Warranty: VTX Macro is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind. We do not guarantee the accuracy of market data, the performance of trading algorithms, or the uptime of the service. We are not liable for any financial losses incurred while using this platform.