Bot Swappers

    This dashboard investigates behaviour of bots involved in swaps on the Terra network in the past month.

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    Introduction

    Bots are defined as wallets that operate by software programs. These software programs execute functions in most cases by using artificial intelligence. Bots in the crypto market are mainly used for trading (swapping) and arbitraging.

    Bots, on the one hand, facilitate activities in the network and increase engagement. In some cases are even vital such as arbitrage activities in the stabilization of the Terra USD. On the other hand, in most hacking attacks and market manipulations bots are intensively involved.

    Therefore identifying bots, understanding their behaviors, and distinguishing between malicious and benevolent bots are important issues for blockchain projects.

    This dashboard investigates behaviour of bots involved in swaps on the Terra network in the past month.

    Definition and measurement

    Bot swappers can be defined as wallets that execute swaps automatically and by utilizing software programs. These activities are programmatic so that differentiated from human activities in some aspects.

    To identify bots we can rely on the inabilities of humans such as being not able to do an activity very frequently in a short period of time and/or continuously an entire a day.

    In the graph below we can see only 12 wallets have executed at least one swap at all hours of the day. This differentiates the activity of these wallets from human activities that need to sleep or work at a certain time of the day.

    Some bots also are used only for a short period of time.

    Therefore, to identify bots in addition to relying on the continuity of activities, the number of repetition of the activity in a short period of time has been used.

    Wallets that in one hour executed more than 20 swaps have been selected.

    In total 18 bots have been identified that are listed in the above graph.

    Analysis

    The graph below shows the percentage of swaps were executed by bots in the past 30 days. We can see that almost one fourth of swaps has been executed by bots in the past month.

    The graph below shows what pools and what pairs were most popular among bot swappers in the past 30 days.

    We can see that UST and LUNA are pairs that has been used most frequently by bots.

    The summary of findings

    • Bot swappers can be distinguished from other swappers by the frequency of their swaps in a short period of time as well as the distribution of their activities in hours a day.

    • One fourth of swaps on Terra network has been executed by bots in the past 30 days.

    • These bots has been utilized for swapping UST for LUNA and LUNA for UST.

    • In the past month bot swappers swapped LUNA for UST more frequently than UST for LUNA.