Polymarket 48h Price Curve Arb Trader

Trades structural mispricings in crypto price-threshold markets by reconstructing the implied probability distribution curve across multiple strike levels and detecting mathematical violations such as monotonicity breaks and range-sum inconsistencies.

48h Price Curve Arbitrage Trader

This is a template. The default signal is implied-CDF violation detection across crypto price-threshold markets — remix it with additional assets, curve-fitting models, or cross-venue price feeds. The skill handles all the plumbing (market discovery, curve construction, trade execution, safeguards). Your agent provides the alpha.

Strategy Overview

Polymarket lists dozens of price-threshold markets for the same asset and date:

• "Will BTC be above $64,000 on March 27?"
• "Will BTC be above $68,000 on March 27?"
• "Will BTC be between $68,000 and $70,000 on March 27?"
• "Will BTC be above $70,000 on March 27?"

Retail trades each market as an isolated bet. But together, these markets form an implied probability distribution curve — a CDF of where the market thinks the price will be.

This skill reconstructs that curve and finds where it is mathematically broken.

The Edge: Butterfly Arbitrage for Prediction Markets

In options markets, quant traders analyze the implied volatility surface across strikes to find mispriced options. This is the prediction market equivalent.

Violation Type 1: Monotonicity Break

The probability of being above a lower price must always be greater than or equal to being above a higher price:

text

P(BTC > $68k) >= P(BTC > $70k) >= P(BTC > $74k)

If a higher strike is priced above a lower strike, the curve is broken.

Violation Type 2: Range-Sum Inconsistency

A "between" market's price must equal the difference of two "above" markets:

text

P($68k < BTC < $70k) == P(BTC > $68k) - P(BTC > $70k)

If the market prices the range at 54% but the above-markets imply 48%, that's 6% of mathematical arbitrage.

Why This Works

1. Retail trades in silos — most users view each market independently and don't cross-reference the full strike ladder
2. No options infrastructure — unlike traditional markets, there's no market maker maintaining curve consistency across strikes
3. Mathematical, not opinion — the violations are provable inconsistencies, not subjective edge calls
4. High volume — BTC price markets are the most actively traded category on Polymarket

Signal Logic

1. Discover all crypto price-threshold markets via keyword search
2. Parse each question: extract asset (BTC/ETH), strike price(s), date, and type (above/between/dip)
3. Group into curves by (asset, date)
4. For each curve with 2+ points:
   • Check monotonicity across "above" markets
   • Check range-sum consistency for "between" markets
5. Rank violations by magnitude
6. Trade only violations that also pass threshold gates (YES_THRESHOLD / NO_THRESHOLD)
7. Size by conviction (violation magnitude), not flat amount

Safety & Execution Mode

The skill defaults to paper trading (venue="sim"). Real trades only with --live flag.

Scenario	Mode	Financial risk
python trader.py	Paper (sim)	None
Cron / automaton	Paper (sim)	None
python trader.py --live	Live (polymarket)	Real USDC

autostart: false and cron: null mean nothing runs automatically until configured in Simmer UI.

Required Credentials

Variable	Required	Notes
SIMMER_API_KEY	Yes	Trading authority. Treat as a high-value credential.

Tunables (Risk Parameters)

All declared as tunables in clawhub.json and adjustable from the Simmer UI.

Variable	Default	Purpose
SIMMER_MAX_POSITION	40	Max USDC per trade at full conviction
SIMMER_MIN_TRADE	5	Floor for any trade
SIMMER_MIN_VOLUME	5000	Min market volume filter (USD)
SIMMER_MAX_SPREAD	0.08	Max bid-ask spread
SIMMER_MIN_DAYS	0	Min days until resolution (0 = allow same-day)
SIMMER_MAX_POSITIONS	8	Max concurrent open positions
SIMMER_YES_THRESHOLD	0.38	Buy YES only if market probability <= this
SIMMER_NO_THRESHOLD	0.62	Sell NO only if market probability >= this
SIMMER_MIN_VIOLATION	0.04	Min curve violation magnitude to trigger a trade

Edge Thesis

Traditional options markets have market makers who enforce curve consistency (no-arbitrage pricing). Polymarket has no such mechanism — each market is priced by its own order book with its own liquidity pool. This creates systematic micro-inconsistencies in the implied distribution, especially when:

• New markets are created at previously unlisted strikes
• Large directional flow pushes one strike without propagating to neighbors
• Market makers leave gaps during low-liquidity hours

This skill treats the strike ladder as a probability lattice and trades the repair.

Dependency

simmer-sdk by Simmer Markets (SpartanLabsXyz)

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/simmer-sdk/
• GitHub: https://github.com/SpartanLabsXyz/simmer-sdk