A guide to crypto trading bots: Analyzing strategies and performance

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Bot trading strategies and performance

Trading bots are sophisticated automated systems that use algorithms to analyze cryptocurrency market data and autonomously execute trades on centralized exchanges or decentralized platforms. These bots typically operate continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, requiring minimal human oversight. Their core function involves the analysis of extensive amounts of real-time and historical market data, including price fluctuations, trading volumes and order book information.

There are numerous potential advantages to employing AI agent trading bots. Their continuous operation ensures that no trading opportunities are missed, as they can monitor markets around the clock, accommodating global market movements. Some platforms offering these bots also provide backtesting capabilities, enabling users to evaluate the potential effectiveness of different trading strategies using historical data before deploying them with real capital.

Telegram DEX bots

Telegram bots operate via Telegram, leveraging its accessibility and real-time communication to execute trades directly on DEXs. They often focus on speed and sniping new tokens, appealing to users in fast-moving ecosystems like Solana. The recently launched protocols also included additional features that are often available in CEX trading bots, such as grid trading, DCA and limit orders.

Telegram bots such as Maestro and Unibot first appeared around 2020–2021. In 2022, many of these bots were already offering advanced features like copy trading and arbitrage.

By the end of 2023, Solana-based bots like BONKBot and Trojan Bot gained prominence for their speed in trading memecoins on DEXs. The biggest advantage of Telegram bots is their ability to trade on mobile devices without the need for a web browser extension to connect to a wallet. It hugely improves the usability of mobile trading, monitoring and integration with social networks.

The top five Telegram bots by historical trading volume across all blockchains are Trojan, BonkBot, Maestro, Banana Gun and Sol Trading Bot. The majority of the trading volumes in the past 90 days happened on Solana, where all of the top five Telegram bots operate.

DEX trading bot wars. Source:

Daily revenue out of total revenue. Source:

The two Telegram bots that share revenue through their tokens are Banana Gun and BonkBot. Looking at the price evolution in the past six months, the performance of the remaining parts is very similar, except for the significant rise in BONK’s price in November 2024. They both experienced significant price drops during the recent bearish market conditions.

Related:

Ai16z is an AI-powered trading fund operating on the Solana blockchain. Launched in October 2024, ai16z utilizes sophisticated AI agents, powered by the Eliza framework, to autonomously analyze market data, including price movements, social media sentiment and onchain analytics, and execute trades.

The fund functions as an AI investment decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), allowing holders of its native token to participate in governance by voting on key decisions and influencing trading strategies through a “virtual marketplace of trust.” AI Marc, a virtual fund manager built using the Eliza framework, oversees the fund’s trading activities. AI16Z tokens represent ownership in the fund and grant governance rights, with the agent’s actions driving token value.

AI16Z price history. Source:

Trading bot performance comparison

Telegram DEX bots like Trojan and Sol Trading Bot dominated in revenue over the past six months, with Trojan earning about $109 million in fees. Sol Trading Bot stood out for consistent daily earnings relative to its size.

However, all bots saw revenue peak during the January 2025 memecoin hype and have since slowed due to bearish market sentiment. Token-linked bots (BANANA, BONK) followed a similar pattern — brief surges (notably BONK in November 2024) followed by steep drops tied to broader market trends.

AI agent bots showed explosive growth during the same period. AIXBT reached a peak price 4,000x its initial value, far outperforming AI16Z (111x). Even post-correction, AIXBT held strong at 478x vs. AI16Z’s 6.8x. Volume-wise, both peaked in January 2025, but AIXBT’s token price closely tracked its volume rise, suggesting strong speculative momentum.

CEX/DEX signals, grid and DCA bots showed the importance of market conditions, and the performance results vary quite a lot compared to the buy-and-hold strategy.

Signal bots performed close to the buy-and-hold strategy during the uptrend market condition (backtesting period September 2024–January 2025), with marginally lower or similar returns.
Grid bots excelled during a downtrend and high volatility environment (backtesting period December 2024–April 2025), beating the buy-and-hold strategy by wide margins, flipping negative market returns into double-digit gains.
DCA bots over a 180-day backtesting period (October 2024–April 2025) had mixed results; they underperformed the buy-and-hold strategy for BTC but dramatically outperformed ETH and SOL, most likely due to their ability to absorb and capitalize on volatility.

Key takeaways

We have dived into the wild world of AI-powered crypto trading bots, pitting Telegram DEX bots, AI agent bots and CEX/DEX bots against each other — each a unique tool tailored to different traders and market conditions.

Telegram DEX bots are designed for ease of use, with a simple interface embedded in the Telegram app. These bots focus on trading memecoins or participating in token launches onchain. They appeal to mobile-savvy traders and memecoin enthusiasts who prioritize quick trades and social integration, with features such as copy trade and revenue-sharing through tokens.

Telegram DEX bots generated significant revenue in the past six months, peaking in January 2025’s memecoin season. But not all of them share revenue with the users. The only two who did (BANANA, BONK) faltered in the recent bearish market, with token prices dropping sharply.

AI agent bots use natural language interfaces and AI decision-making to lower the barrier to entry for users interested in governance (e.g., AI16Z’s DAO model) or sentiment-driven strategies (e.g., AIXBT’s X analysis). Their primary strength lies in abstracting complex trading strategies through conversational interfaces.

Although AI agent bots’ token price exhibited explosive growth, the recent market downtrend has led to less trading activity and lower token prices. AI agent bots stand out as a more experimental category. They remain under development and are best suited for users who are tech-curious or seeking a hybrid between simplicity and automation.

Bots operating on DEXs or CEXs directly offer web-based platforms with diverse strategies, suiting more experienced traders who need high-speed execution, multi-exchange access, deep liquidity and complex configurability. The backtesting results show signal bots give similar returns to the bullish buy-and-hold strategy, whereas grid bots thrive in volatile downturn markets, and DCA bots outperform the buy-and-hold strategy for more volatile assets.

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