Our experts talk about the new trend in the crypto market and the associated risks of trading through Telegram bots

Trading bots in the Telegram messenger have quickly gained popularity among cryptocurrency traders. And those who prefer trading assets on decentralized exchanges (DEX). They are easier to use for quick and more precise trades. And skipping not the most user-friendly interface of blockchain-based trading platforms. However, the convenience of bots comes at the cost of trusting such bots with access to investors’ wallets.

Based on predetermined rules, having received a message, bots can recognize trading commands. And interpret them and then promptly execute trades on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap. When first launched, the bot creates a wallet for the user. And providing him with access keys, after which funds need to be deposited into that wallet to start trading.

Bots also give a set of useful tools such as limit orders. And copy-trading (automatic copying of trades of given addresses) and so-called token sniping – tracking the appearance of new tokens on the Ethereum blockchain with automatic purchase. The bots have their own tokens, and rising prices are creating a speculative frenzy around them.

Unibot, launched in May this year, is considered the obvious leader in terms of the number of users and trading volumes

Its own token, UNIBOT, rose in value by more than 50% over the past week. And since its launch, it has increased in value almost 50 times. The demand for the token is supported by the fact that it must be held to pay trading commissions. However, 40% of these commissions are returned to users and are distributed proportionally to the number of tokens held by all owners.

The daily trading volume of the UNIBOT token at the time of publication exceeds $10.5 million, according to the aggregator CoinGecko. The site has a separate section for tokens of Telegram bots. And their list already numbers in the dozens – the developers are obviously trying to repeat the success of the pioneer and capitalize on the new market narrative.

Other popular bots include Swipe, WagieBot, Bolt and others. According to Dune Analytics, since May, more than 63,000 users have made transactions totaling about $193.7 million using bots, with Unibot accounting for the vast majority of the transactions. And more than $1 million in commission refunds have been distributed to bot token holders.

When making transactions on decentralized exchanges, users have to constantly log into their wallet. And check the correctness of information about tokens and face high commissions. At the same time, they still have full control over their own assets and do not need to entrust their wallet keys to a third party.

The appeal of trading bots is likely due to their ease of use compared to platforms. And which run on smart contracts. That said, users are forced to trust the wallets. And which are created inside the bots, with the condition that the bots have full access to them.

Safety and risks of Telegram bots

Despite the surge in popularity of trading bots. Security experts are critical of their approach to user assets.

In a comment to The Block, former Microsoft security chief Christian Seifert calls the emergence of trading bots in Telegram a “scary development.” And at the same time referring to their closed source code and the need to share wallet keys with them. In his opinion, this can be more dangerous than transferring funds to dubious crypto exchanges or to the addresses of unverified smart contracts. “In the second case, at least you can limit the level of access to funds. With bots, you are essentially just trusting them with your funds and hoping they won’t misappropriate them,” the expert cautions.

Yajin Zhou, co-founder of BlockSec, a blockchain security company. Similarly expressed similar concerns about the growing trend of bots on Telegram in a comment to reporters. He also talks about possible risks associated with the transfer of tokens to third-party wallets created by applications.

The high speed and ease of use of bots often comes at the cost of reduced security.

When such services automatically create a wallet for the user. There is a risk associated with permanently storing private keys inside the bot. If there is a data leak or a hack, it can turn into a disaster for bot users. After all, the bot developers themselves, often anonymous, can misappropriate user funds.

When a bot creates a wallet, it essentially creates a cryptographic key pair. The public key represents the address for incoming funds. The private key, gives access to those funds. This is what could potentially be the primary target of attackers. And who can easily withdraw assets from the wallet if it is compromised. On the other hand, if a user loses the private key without a backup, they will lose access to their assets.

Since private keys for wallets are not generated by users themselves. And their security is not always guaranteed, and this opens the door to abuse. He confidently says that in the future, unscrupulous bot developers will steal users’ funds.

Our experts note that if we draw parallels with past periods of excitement around memcoins or DeFi-tokens promising quick profits. Most of them turned out to be outright fraudulent projects. And that “countless investors” suffered.

Amid negative news for the crypto market, decentralized trading platforms are seeing large sales of the leading “stablecoin” USDT from Tether

The largest by market capitalization, Tether’s USDT stablecoin has come under pressure. The coin, which is nominally pegged to the U.S. dollar, temporarily lost parity with it.

The leading stablecoin fell slightly below $1. This came after the Curve decentralized platform’s 3Pool liquidity pool suffered a major asset imbalance. 3Pool is the third largest trading pool of all existing decentralized exchange (DEX) trading platforms (DeFi). And the largest in terms of the amount of stablecoins in it USDT and DAI. At the time of publication, USDT is at $0.999, according to CoinMarketCap.

Curve and Uniswap are the largest decentralized financial protocols for exchanging and trading cryptoassets. Which operate on the basis of software-based smart contracts without a central intermediary (e.g., an exchange).

A liquidity pool is a smart contract containing locked tokens that have been provided by platform users. And acting as an automated market maker on a decentralized exchange

Against the background of the latest news about tough actions of American regulators in relation to major market players, the panic among market participants is quite understandable.

However, the loss of USDT parity with the dollar is caused more by the actions of specific individuals in the liquidity pools of DeFi-platforms.
Our experts note that this happens not for the first time. And earlier it turned out to be a provocation [of market participants] in order to make quick money on opening the necessary position. And manipulations in DeFi were the starting shot.

As Ardoino wrote in a commentary to The Block, “The market as a whole is very tight right now.” He said recent news is pushing big players to exit the cryptocurrency markets. “Tether is a gateway for liquidity, both inbound and outbound. When interest in cryptocurrencies rises, we see an influx. And when the mood in the cryptocurrency market is negative, we see an outflow. But we can’t rule out a direct attack on Tether, as we saw in 2022,” adds Ardoino.

Trading volume were boosted by trend events, such as the rise of “Chinese” coins. And also etherium Arbitrum, led to an increase in cryptocurrency trading activity

In the first quarter of 2023, the total trading volume of the 15 largest exchanges reached $10.8 trillion, with an increase of more than 40% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. This is stated in the report of the analytical platform TokenInsight.

Changes in trading volume and market share of exchanges. These are parameters that directly indicate the rise or fall of the crypto industry. Bitcoin’s price recovery in the first quarter of the year was the most important factor. Which caused an active increase in trading volume.

Binance still holds the largest market share with 55% of trading volume. This is despite a slight decline in its share – it was 60% in the fourth quarter of 2022. OKX and Bybit, as at the end of last year, occupy the second and third places, respectively.

Spot trading volume on the top ten exchanges totaled $2.4 trillion between January and March, up 16% from the previous period. Derivatives trading volume on the top 10 exchanges totaled $7.8 trillion, up 30%.

In addition to the rise in the price of Bitcoin, many trending events occurred in the first quarter. For example, the growth of “Chinese” coins and the Arbitrum Airdrop (ARB). This led to increased activity in derivatives trading, according to our experts.

Binance, OKX and Bybit exchanges collectively accounted for 85% of the cryptocurrency derivatives market in the first quarter of this year.

The report also noted that most native crypto exchanges’ tokens closed the first quarter with an increase in price. Only LEO Token (LEO) from Bitfinex and HT from Huobi fell in price.

The only exchange token that outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum in growth was BGB (Bitget exchange). And it was up 120%. The token Gate (GT) of the exchange Gate.io and OKB (OKB) from OKX rose in price by more than 50%.

In addition, our experts note that in early April it became known. That the monthly trading volume on decentralized exchanges renewed the maximum since May 2022. Rapid growth of cryptocurrency trading on DEX platforms began in March amid the bankruptcies of U.S. banks.