Poly-Maker: A Market Making Bot for Polymarket

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Trading cryptocurrencies and participating in prediction markets involves significant risk. This is high-risk software that trades real money. Market making can lead to losses due to sudden price movements, one-sided fills, market resolution, API/network failures, or changes in reward structures. Always start with DRY_RUN=true and use very small amounts of capital for live testing.

This repository contains a market-making bot for the Polymarket prediction market platform.

The Lightweight Bot (Active) is the primary, modern implementation. It’s a standalone bot configured via a simple .env file, designed for efficiency and ease of use.
The Legacy System (Reference) is the original, more complex implementation reliant on Google Sheets. It is preserved for reference.

Read the Architecture Guide →

Features (Lightweight Bot)

.env Configuration: All parameters, from API keys to strategy variables, are managed in a single .env file.
Rebate-Focused Strategy: Primarily uses GTC (Good-Til-Cancelled) + Post-Only orders to act as a maker and capture rebates.
Short-Term Price Prediction: Employs a predictor based on micro-price and order book imbalance to forecast short-term fair value.
Intelligent Order Reconciliation: Minimizes unnecessary order cancellations and placements, helping to preserve order queue priority.
Integrated Risk Management:
- Per-market and global exposure limits.
- Inventory skew logic to adjust quotes based on current holdings.
- Emergency exit mechanism to quickly unload positions in adverse market conditions.
Data Recording: Logs market state, predictions, and positions to a CSV file for every tick, enabling offline analysis and strategy refinement.
Helper Utilities: Includes scripts for market discovery, latency measurement, and authentication troubleshooting.
Deployment Ready: Comes with a systemd service file for running as a background service on a VPS.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/your-username/poly-maker.git
cd poly-maker

Install Python dependencies using uv:
```
uv sync
```
(Optional) Install Node.js dependencies for the legacy position merger:
```
cd poly_merger
npm install
cd ..
```

Configuration

Create your environment file:
```
cp .env.example .env
```
Edit .env: Open the .env file and fill in your details. Refer to ENV_CONFIG_GUIDE.md for a detailed explanation of every variable.

Usage

1. Find a Market

Discover markets with liquidity rewards:

uv run python discover_markets.py --limit 10

Get IDs from a market URL:

uv run python resolve_market.py "https://polymarket.com/event/..."

2. Measure Latency

Run the latency probe to find the value for PREDICTION_LATENCY_MS in your .env.

uv run python latency_probe.py --samples 20

3. Check Authentication

If you encounter invalid signature errors, this script can help diagnose issues.

uv run python check_auth.py

4. Run the Bot

ALWAYS start with a dry run.

Dry Run (No real orders):
```
uv run python main.py
```
Live Trading: Once confident, set DRY_RUN=false in your .env.
```
DRY_RUN=false uv run python main.py
```

Deployment on a VPS

For continuous operation, it’s recommended to run the bot on a server. A systemd service file is provided in service/poly-maker.service for convenience.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the LICENSE file.