This help article is meant to explain how to set up your Shrimpy Pro account to work with additional APIs linked to your exchange account.
It is worth noting that we do not recommend utilizing Shrimpy Pro in conjunction with another third-party trading service due to the number of things that can go wrong that are out of our control and the direct monetary cost associated with trading mistakes - trades cannot be reversed and trading fees cannot be refunded. That said, we do recognize that some users will still want to pair Shrimpy Pro with another service that utilizes API regardless of our recommendation.
Before we get into how to set up your Shrimpy Pro account, we'll need to explain a few things first to give you an idea of how all of the moving parts work and why you must use a specific Shrimpy Pro configuration in order to successfully utilize additional API trading services in conjunction with Shrimpy Pro on your exchange account.
API Rate Limiting
The first thing we'll need to look at is API Rate Limiting. This is a limit on the number of API calls an exchange is willing to process within a specified time period. Each exchange approaches API rate limiting differently, they will have a different number of calls allowed and a different time period for the duration of rate limiting. Upon reaching this limit, an exchange will no longer process API calls for your exchange account until a specific time period has passed. These limits are generally aggregated for your exchange account as opposed to being limited to an individual set of API keys. This means that the more API keys you have actively sending API requests to the exchange, the more likely you are to run into situations where API rate limiting is utilized. Shrimpy Pro does not have a way to circumvent or prevent API rate limiting.
In Shrimpy Pro, when your exchange account is rate limited, we do not receive any data from your exchange account. On our end, it looks as though the API keys you're using no longer exist and our system will automatically notify you that your API keys are invalid. Your Dashboard will not update, and you will not be able to place trades either manually or via automated rebalancing. After the rate limit period has expired, your Dashboard will update and your Shrimpy Pro account will resume normal operations once we begin receiving balance data from your exchange account with no action required on your part.
Ultimately, because there's nothing Shrimpy Pro can do to prevent or circumvent API rate limiting, we do not recommend utilizing additional sets of API keys on your exchange account that is linked to Shrimpy Pro.
It is also worth noting that Kraken has the lowest API rate limit of any exchange that we support, and it is unlikely that you will be able to successfully utilize multiple API services on a Kraken exchange account.
External Trades
The second thing we need to cover is going to be external trades, or trades placed on your exchange account outside of Shrimpy Pro. This could be you trading manually on your exchange account, or it could be another service placing trades on your exchange account via API.
When there is a change to your balances that is not caused by Shrimpy Pro, regardless of why, we assume that it is a deposit or withdrawal. In the case of a trade, it will be classified as both a deposit (purchased asset) and withdrawal (sold asset). All deposits and withdrawals are routed to your default portfolio. This means that if you place an external trade for an asset held in portfolio A, but portfolio B is your default portfolio, the asset you buy will be transferred in Shrimpy Pro to portfolio B automatically. If portfolio B is automated, then the asset you purchased will get used by the automation assigned to your default portfolio. For this reason, we do not recommend automating your default portfolio when utilizing our multiple portfolios feature.
And now, on to the good stuff...
Configuring your Shrimpy Pro account
At this point, we're assuming that you've got your funded exchange account linked to Shrimpy Pro. If you need help linking your exchange account to Shrimpy Pro, this help article should get you there.
Utilizing our Multiple Portfolios feature, you're able to segment your balance on the exchange into different portfolios. You can read more about how to use this feature here.
The first thing you're going to need to do is create a second portfolio and set it as your default portfolio. As mentioned above, this is going to be the portfolio to which all deposits and withdrawals are routed.
Next, move all funds that you don't want allocated to Shrimpy Pro into this new portfolio via balance transfer. This portfolio is going to contain all assets traded via other 3rd party API trading services and you must not assign an automation to this portfolio. Automating your default portfolio will lead to issues with any other API trading services actively trading on your exchange account.
Trading Considerations
The most important thing you must keep in mind is that you'll need to ensure that only assets held in your default portfolio are traded externally.
You are able to have the same asset traded by both Shrimpy Pro and externally, however the amount that is traded externally must not exceed what is contained within your default portfolio. Failure to adhere to this will result in unnecessary and unwanted trades.
For example, let's say hypothetically that you have 2 portfolios with .5BTC in each, and your Shrimpy Pro automation includes 5 total assets. Now, let's say that you manually trade 0.8 BTC directly on the exchange in a single transaction. In Shrimpy Pro, 0.3BTC will be removed from your automated portfolio and transferred to the default portfolio, triggering a rebalance in your automated portfolio. The rest of your automated portfolio, which is now overallocated, will experience some level of selling in order to get your automated portfolio back to your desired allocations. As you can imagine, undoing an unnecessary rebalance caused by an external trade can get cumbersome and expensive.
Conclusion
It is technically possible to utilize Shrimpy Pro with another automated cryptocurrency trading service that utilizes API if and only if you maintain separation of funds held within your exchange account. Because of the difficulty involved in this, combined with the potential expense of mistakes, we cannot recommend combining Shrimpy Pro with any other third-party API services.
Have questions, comments or concerns? Feel free to reach out to us via the blue "Support" button found in the bottom left corner of your Dashboard, or send an email to Support@Shrimpy.io.