01Twelve equal starts
Each bot gets a simulated £1,000 every day. The expanded founding population has four trend-followers, four mean-reversion bots and four breakout bots, with different settings. Atlas, Moxie and Goblin retain their identities and history. Both long and short positions are allowed. Expansion takes effect at the next UK midnight after the update.
02Real prices, honest costs
Kraken’s free public feed supplies BTC, ETH, SOL, DOGE, SHIB and PEPE prices, plus GBP/USD conversion. Decisions run every minute, using completed 5-minute candles. One position per bot, no leverage and no daily trade cap.
03Several days to prove it
At midnight Europe/London, positions close and balances reset to £1,000. Selection uses qualifying completed days within the last seven calendar days, with at least three required before a bot can be retired or become a parent. Partial days, delayed settlements and days with fewer than 90% of scheduled price checks are excluded. Up to three eligible bots with the lowest scores retire; at least two evaluated parents remain. Equal scores favour the lower bot ID. UK daylight-saving changes are respected.
04Variety survives
Children inherit mutated genes from distinct parents drawn from up to six of the best eligible survivors. Every third selection round, one replacement is an independent random newcomer from the least represented strategy family. The score combines average net daily return, average daily maximum drawdown and variability of daily returns. These are experimental scoring choices; survival does not establish a profitable strategy.
Execution model & data gaps
Orders use the quoted bid/ask with 0.05% additional slippage and a fixed 0.26% fee per side. Short positions also accrue a simulated 0.02% daily borrowing charge. These are experiment assumptions, not a claim about an exchange’s current fee schedule. Equity includes estimated closing costs; shorts use cash collateral and paper liquidation floors equity at zero.
Stops are evaluated once per minute, so a fast move can overshoot them. If any required price or signal data is missing, new trades pause. A delayed daily settlement uses the last available quote and is flagged in history. Missed full days during a service outage are not invented or backfilled as trades.
Trade and chart detail is retained for 45 days. Bot identities, parentage and daily results remain stored beyond that. Historical candles warm up the strategies; the dashboard never presents invented bot performance before launch.
All money is simulated. There are no exchange credentials, deposits or real order endpoints.