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Vortex DCA Strategy

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What It Does

Vortex DCA buys dips on a widening grid and takes quick small profits — typically around 0.2% per cycle. If price keeps falling past the grid, a wave queue extends it with fresh, larger orders to rescue the position. In plain terms: instead of guessing where price will go, the bot places a ladder of buy orders below the current price. Small dips fill the closest orders; bigger dips fill bigger orders deeper down, pulling your average entry lower each time. As soon as price recovers a small distance above that average, the entire position exits at a profit and the cycle restarts. Most current presets run the same logic on the short side at the same time (selling rips, buying back lower). 
Price now: $100
                                 ← TP: whole position exits ~0.2% above avg entry
   $99.3  ── buy (small)
   $98.4  ── buy (bigger)
   $97.3  ── buy (bigger still)
   $95.8  ── buy (biggest)        ← deepest order ≈ outer_distance below price

Each fill lowers your average entry → a smaller bounce is enough to exit green.
The flip side: a market that keeps falling keeps filling your buy orders. Vortex DCA converts price drawdowns into position drawdowns by design. The wave queue, drawdown stop, and hedging features below exist to manage that risk — not eliminate it.

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The Core Cycle

1

Entry

The bot opens a small initial position (current presets use a staged entry that waits for an order-book wall or a wick into the entry band rather than market-buying immediately).
2

Grid

A ladder of nr_clusters buy orders (4 in most presets) is placed between the current price and outer_distance below it (about 3–5% in presets, adjusted live by volatility).
3

Average down

Dips fill grid levels. Order value grows geometrically with depth — with preset settings each deeper level is roughly 2x the previous — so deep fills move your average entry meaningfully.
4

Take profit

A post-only reduce-only limit order sits at average entry × (1 + minimum_tp). It is refreshed every 60 seconds, and if price has already moved past the target the TP “chases” at the current price so the exit isn’t left behind.
5

Reset

After the TP fills, the position is flat and a fresh grid is built around the new price.

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Grid Mechanics

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Geometric sizing

Order quantities follow a geometric progression controlled by ratio_power. Presets use ratio_power: 0.75, which makes each deeper level worth about 2.2x the previous one in dollar terms. Small frequent dips cost you little; rare deep dips deploy the most capital where it improves your average entry the most.

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Volatility-aware spacing (dynamic spacing)

The grid span is not fixed. With dynamic_spacing enabled (it is in current presets), the bot measures recent volatility (1-minute price movement plus tick-level data) and widens or tightens outer_distance between configured bounds — presets use 1.5% in calm markets up to 6% in violent ones. Reactive spacing additionally widens the grid when the order book thins out, spreads blow out, or book imbalance spikes.

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Gridspan-normalized sizing

When volatility shrinks the grid span, order sizes shrink proportionally (gridspan_normalized_sizing). A grid compressed to 1.5% span deploys a fraction of the budget that a full 5% grid would, so a calm-market grid that fills completely doesn’t create the same exposure as a full-width one. The risk ceiling (see hard cap below) stays pinned to the wallet-derived value regardless of volatility.

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Order-book aware levels

In grid_mode: "orderbook" (used by current presets), grid prices snap to detected liquidity rather than purely mathematical spacing, placing levels where real support exists.

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The Wave Queue (Position Rescue)

The wave queue is the system that keeps Vortex from getting stranded when price falls through the entire grid. The featured “Vortex Waves” presets are built around it.

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Soft cap vs. hard cap

Two budget lines matter:
  • Soft cap — wallet_balance × wallet_exposure. This is the normal per-side budget; the initial grid (wave 0) deploys a share of it.
  • Hard cap — soft cap × max_total_exposure_pct (presets use 1.5). This is the absolute risk ceiling across all waves. No wave activation, and no individual order, may push cumulative deployed cost past it.
Example: 1,000wallet,‘walletexposure:60‘,‘maxtotalexposurepct:1.5‘→softcap1,000 wallet, `wallet_exposure: 60`, `max_total_exposure_pct: 1.5` → soft cap 600, hard cap $900.

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How waves progress

When the active wave’s grid is fully consumed (price fell through every level) and the position is still open, the bot activates the next wave: a fresh grid of nr_clusters levels anchored at the then-current price, sized from that wave’s share of the budget and clipped to whatever room remains under the hard cap. The previous wave is marked exhausted. With wave_share: [0.6, 0.4] and two waves, wave 0 gets 60% of the budget and the rescue wave 40%. A wave activation is refused — and logged — when the hard cap is reached, the remaining budget is below min_wave_notional_usd, or max_waves is exhausted. The wave queue also supersedes the older extend_grid_when_exhausted and deep_rescue_extension paths; when it’s enabled those are suppressed.

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auto_max_waves

Instead of hand-picking max_waves and wave_share, presets enable auto_max_waves: at startup the bot reads your live wallet balance and computes the largest number of waves such that every wave still gets a meaningful budget (at least min_wave_pct_of_budget of the total, default 2% in presets) and at least 2 levels that survive the exchange’s minimum order size. Shares follow a geometric_back distribution (factor 1.3): later waves get progressively bigger budgets, so the deepest rescue waves hit hardest — this is the “never stuck” design.

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Escape valves (why grids don’t get stranded)

Three independent mechanisms advance a stuck wave:
  1. Fill-driven progression — the normal path: all levels fill, next wave activates.
  2. Force-advance gate — if a wave is mostly consumed (more than ~50% of its quantity filled) but its last 1–2 levels have been left stranded more than ~2% from the live price by re-pricing, the wave is declared done and the next wave builds a fresh grid near the current price.
  3. Wave-anchor drift advance (anchor-stable mode) — if price drifts more than wave_anchor_drift_advance_pct (4% in presets) in the adverse direction from the wave’s anchor, the next wave activates at the current price to restore coverage. This replaces the force-advance gate when anchor-stable grids are on.

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Anchor-Stable Grids (Why Orders “Don’t Run Away”)

Without anchoring, grid prices are re-derived from the current price on every refresh. In a slow bleed this makes buy orders drift down with the market — they chase price, never fill, and the position never averages down. Users see this as “my orders keep running away.” With anchor_stable_grid: true (the “Vortex Waves Anchored” presets):
  • Each wave records its activation anchor price, and every level stores its fixed percentage offset from that anchor. On refresh, prices are recomputed from the anchor, not from wherever price happens to be — the grid stays put and lets price come to it.
  • The grid still breathes with volatility: if dynamic spacing has changed the span materially (beyond a ±3% tolerance), level offsets are scaled by the ratio of the current span to the span at activation. Small wiggles inside the tolerance change nothing.
  • Per-order tolerance: an existing order within 5 bps (price_tolerance_bps) of its target is left alone instead of being cancelled and re-placed. This eliminates most order churn — fewer cancels, less rate-limit pressure, no flickering grid.
  • The drift-advance valve above guarantees an anchored grid can never lock itself permanently far from the market.

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Take-Profit Behavior

  • TP target: average_entry × (1 ± minimum_tp) — presets use 0.0018–0.0024 (0.18–0.24%).
  • Placed as a post-only, reduce-only limit so it earns maker fees and can never increase the position.
  • Refreshed every 60 seconds as the average entry changes with each fill.
  • If price has already moved past the target, the TP is re-placed at the current price (“chasing”) so a fast move doesn’t leave the exit behind.

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Risk & Safety Systems

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Max-drawdown stop

max_drawdown_usdt (presets use $150 per symbol) closes the position at market if unrealized loss exceeds the threshold, then pauses the symbol for stop_cooldown_seconds (300s) before re-entering. 0 disables it.

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Liquidation safeguard

With liquidation_safeguard on, the bot reduces risk when price approaches the liquidation level (presets trigger at 5% distance).

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Entry filters

Presets gate new entries through a candle-trend filter and a spike block (no fresh entries while a 5-minute candle exceeds ~1.2% range), so grids aren’t opened into a knife.

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Auto-hedging (optional)

When enabled, the bot opens an opposing position when the main position is in trouble. Current code defaults:
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vortex_autohedge_enabled
boolean
default:"false"
Enable auto-hedging. Off in the wave-queue presets (the wave queue is the primary rescue path); on in the dedicated “Auto-Hedge” presets.
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vortex_autohedge_ratio
float
default:"0.5"
Hedge size as a fraction of the main position.
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vortex_autohedge_on_drawdown_pct
float
default:"0.04"
Trigger hedge when drawdown exceeds this fraction (4%).
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vortex_autohedge_on_liquidation_distance_pct
float
default:"0.10"
Also trigger when within this distance of liquidation.
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vortex_autohedge_tp_target
float
default:"0.002"
Hedge take-profit target (0.2%), with a trailing stop (0.2% trail distance) enabled by default.
See Auto-Hedging for the full system.

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Virtual chunking (optional, legacy recovery)

An older recovery system, still available and used by some DEFX presets: when a position is underwater past a threshold it is virtually split into chunks, large “attack” orders average it down, and each chunk exits at a small profit. Current code defaults: 3% threshold, 5 chunks, 0.1% profit target per chunk, 15x attack multiplier (capped). The wave queue is the recommended rescue path for new deployments.

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Key Parameters

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nr_clusters
integer
default:"4"
Number of grid levels per side. All current presets use 4.
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outer_distance
float
default:"0.05"
Distance from current price to the deepest order, as a decimal (0.042 = 4.2%). With dynamic spacing on, this is the baseline — the live value moves between min_outer_distance and max_outer_distance (1.5%–6% in presets).
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ratio_power
float
default:"0.7"
Controls how steeply order value grows with depth (geometric progression). Presets use 0.75 ≈ 2.2x value per level. Higher values concentrate more budget in the deepest orders.
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wallet_exposure
float
Per-symbol budget as a percent of wallet balance (60 = 60%). Featured single-symbol presets use 60–70; multi-symbol presets use 30 per symbol. This is the soft cap; the wave-queue hard cap is wallet_exposure × max_total_exposure_pct.
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minimum_tp
float
default:"0.002"
Take-profit distance from average entry as a decimal (0.002 = 0.2%). Presets: 0.0018–0.0024.
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grid_refresh_interval
integer
default:"180"
Seconds between grid recalculations. Presets use 90. With anchor-stable grids, refreshes mostly verify orders instead of moving them.
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wave_queue.max_total_exposure_pct
float
default:"1.5"
Hard cap multiplier over the soft cap. Total deployed cost across all waves can never exceed soft cap × this value.
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wave_queue.wave_share
array
default:"[1.0]"
Budget share per wave, e.g. [0.6, 0.4]. Overridden at boot when auto_max_waves is enabled.
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wave_queue.auto_max_waves.anchor_stable_grid
boolean
default:"false"
Pin wave grid prices to the wave’s activation anchor instead of re-deriving from the current price every refresh. The “Anchored” presets enable this.
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max_drawdown_usdt
float
default:"0"
Per-symbol USD stop loss. 0 = disabled; presets use 150.
PresetSpanExposureMin TPWave queueNotes
Vortex Waves Never Stuck4.2%70%0.18–0.2%2 waves, hard cap 1.5x, auto_max_wavesFeatured; geometric-back rescue waves
Vortex Waves Anchored5.2%60%0.18–0.2%Same + anchor-stable gridMinimal order churn; grids hold their ground
Vortex Waves Never Stuck (Multi-Symbol)4.2%30%/symbol0.18–0.2%Same as singleSpreads the budget across symbols
All three are available on both Bybit and BloFin via the exchange toggle on the Marketplace card.

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Troubleshooting

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”Bot not placing orders”

  1. Staged entry may be waiting for an order-book wall or wick — check the logs for entry-filter messages
  2. Spike block active (recent 5m candle range above threshold)
  3. Insufficient free balance for the configured wallet_exposure

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”Orders sit far from price and never move”

With anchor-stable presets this is intentional — the grid is anchored and waits for price to come to it. If price drifts more than 4% adversely from the wave anchor, the drift-advance valve activates a fresh wave near the current price automatically.

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”Position keeps growing without a TP fill”

The market is trending against the grid. Check: how many waves are used (wave-queue log lines show deployed/hard_cap), whether max_drawdown_usdt is set, and whether you’re comfortable with the hard-cap exposure. In a sustained trend the strategy will sit at its cap and wait — that is the designed behavior, and it can take a long time or end at the drawdown stop.

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Next Steps

Preset Guide

Pick the right preset in the Marketplace

Auto-Hedging

The optional hedging layer

Risk Management

Sizing and survival rules

Bot Management

Deploy, monitor, stop