Polymarket 24h Price Curve Arb Trader

Trades structural mispricings in crypto price-threshold markets by reconstructing the implied probability distribution curve across multiple strike levels an...

Security Scan

The skill's code, instructions, and environment requirements are consistent with a Polymarket arbitrage trader; it only needs a Simmer API key and defaults to safe paper trading, but the package provenance is unknown so exercise caution.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description (Polymarket 24h price-curve arb trader) align with the code and SKILL.md: the skill discovers Polymarket-style price-threshold markets, reconstructs implied-CDF curves, detects monotonicity/range-sum violations, and can submit trades. Required artifact (SIMMER_API_KEY) and dependency (simmer-sdk) are appropriate. Note: source/homepage are missing and owner is an opaque ID; if provenance matters, review simmer-sdk and the included trader.py before trusting.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md and trader.py limit actions to market discovery, curve construction, filtering, and trading via the Simmer SDK. Instructions default to paper (sim) mode; live trading only occurs with an explicit --live flag. The instructions do not request unrelated files, credentials, or system data.

Install Mechanism

No custom install script; clawhub.json declares a pip dependency on simmer-sdk which is a normal registry package. No suspicious download URLs or archive extraction are present in the manifest or files.

Credentials

The only required environment secret is SIMMER_API_KEY, which is proportional to a skill that places trades via the Simmer API. Other parameters are tunables exposed via environment variables and declared in clawhub.json. The code reads only those declared variables.

Persistence & Privilege

autostart is false and cron is null so nothing runs automatically by default. The skill is allowed to be invoked autonomously by the model (disable-model-invocation is not set), which is platform default and not, by itself, a red flag. The skill does not modify other skills or system-wide settings.

Assessment

This skill appears internally consistent with its stated purpose, but the package/source provenance is unknown. Before installing: verify you trust the simmer-sdk PyPI project and optionally inspect the full trader.py file (it contains the trading logic). Provide a SIMMER_API_KEY with minimal privileges required for simulation/live trading and consider using a restricted/test API key for live flag testing. Remember the skill will only place real trades when run with --live; keep autostart off and monitor activity/logs. If you require higher assurance, ask for the upstream repository or a maintainer contact and audit the third-party simmer-sdk code.

24h 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:

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:

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