Comparisons
Who can move the assets, and who has to cooperate to stop it?
Every automated trading service answers that question differently, and the answer matters more than any feature list. These pages compare architectures on that axis and nothing else. They carry no performance figures, and each one says plainly where the alternative is the better choice — including where it beats ours.
The checklist · 8 min
Six questions to ask before you connect anything to your money
Who can move the assets, who enforces the limit, what happens if the operator vanishes, how you would know it stopped, what the record proves, and what it costs to leave. With our own answers, including the four questions where something else beats us.
Axis — The questions every service answers, and the ones most of them skip
API-key trading bots · 7 min
What a trading bot can actually do with your exchange API keys
Trade-enabled exchange API keys let a bot move your balance between assets without ever withdrawing it. What that permits, what it does not, and how the on-chain alternative differs — including where the API-key model is genuinely safer.
Axis — Who can move the assets, and who has to cooperate to stop it
3Commas · 7 min
3Commas and Tradevo: two different trust assumptions
An honest architectural comparison. 3Commas trades your exchange balance through a scoped API key you can delete yourself; Tradevo executes on Base from a wallet you hold the keys to. Where each model is stronger, stated plainly.
Axis — Exchange-held balance with a deletable key, versus self-held wallet with a delegated signer
Cryptohopper · 7 min
Cryptohopper and Tradevo: counting the parties you are trusting
Cryptohopper is cloud-hosted and connects by exchange API key, and its marketplace adds a third party to the chain. An honest comparison of who has to behave well — including where Cryptohopper is the better choice.
Axis — How many separate parties have to behave well for this to go as expected
Pionex · 7 min
Pionex and Tradevo: fewer parties, or fewer things one party controls
Pionex puts the bots inside the exchange, which removes the third party and concentrates everything in the venue. A comparison of how trust is distributed, and where Pionex is the better choice.
Axis — One party holding everything, versus one party holding a scoped authorisation
Copy trading · 6 min
Copy trading and curated strategies: what each one asks you to believe
Following a trader shows you what they did, not the rule that produced it — and the records you are shown were selected after the fact. What each model asks you to take on faith, and where copy trading is the better choice.
Axis — Following a person's decisions versus following a published method
Self-hosted bots · 6 min
Running your own bot: what you take on when you remove the operator
Freqtrade or Hummingbot on your own machine removes every third party. What that actually costs — uptime, key handling, upgrades, and restart correctness — and why plenty of people should still do it.
Axis — Removing the operator, and inheriting everything the operator was doing
Scheduled buying · 5 min
Scheduled buying: the narrowest automation, and what it still requires
Recurring buys need permission to move a bounded amount of one pair on a clock. Most implementations are granted account-wide trading instead. What each model permits, and the failure nobody mentions — a schedule that silently stops.
Axis — How wide a permission the simplest possible automation is granted
Sponsored gas · 5 min
Sponsored gas: who pays, and what happens if they stop
Sponsorship removes the need to hold a network's native token and creates a dependency on the operator's economics. The three possible answers to 'what happens if sponsorship stops', and why only one of them is acceptable.
Axis — Whether the product still works when the operator stops paying
Telegram bots · 6 min
"Telegram bot" tells you the interface, not who holds your keys
Two products both accurately called a Telegram trading bot can sit at opposite ends of the custody spectrum. How to tell which kind you are using, why importing a seed phrase ends the evaluation, and where Telegram bots are the better choice.
Axis — One name covering everything from full operator custody to none at all
Tradevo Technologies builds evidence infrastructure for systematic trading. Nothing on these pages is investment advice. Crypto assets are volatile and you can lose your entire allocation.