A grid bot earned ~3% in two weeks in a sideways market — then stalled when price broke range. The dashboard annualised that fortnight into a triple-digit APR. Here is the trick, step by step.

A grid bot earned about 3.2% over two weeks while Bitcoin ranged between $68,000 and $78,000. Then price fell below the floor, and the bot stalled — no sell side left, capital stuck in a bag. A DCA bot closed cycles every few days in moderate volatility, then lost money in a sustained downtrend once every safety order filled at once.

Both results are genuine. Both get marketed as triple-digit APRs. Here is how.

Step 1: take a short, lucky window

Two good weeks. Ignore the stall, the drawdown, and the months the bot did nothing.

Step 2: annualise it

3.2% in two weeks, multiplied out as if it repeated 26 times a year, becomes a number near 80–130% — and with compounding assumptions, higher. The dashboard shows the annualised number in large type and the window in small type, if at all.

Step 3: omit the conditions

The return required a ranging market inside a specific band. Outside the band, the same bot stalls or bags. A DCA bot needs volatility without a trend; in a sustained downtrend, it keeps buying into the fall. None of that is in the headline.

Step 4: omit the costs and the comparison

Fees, spread, and the opportunity cost of holding the bagged asset are rarely in the headline. Neither is the comparison with buy-and-hold over the same dates. A bot that made 3% while Bitcoin itself rose 10% did not beat the market; it lagged it with extra complexity.

How to read any bot return in 10 seconds

  • Over what window, in what market? (If the window is under a month, ignore the annualisation.)
  • Net of every fee? (If not stated, assume gross.)
  • What happens outside the favourable regime? (Every bot has a market it dies in. If the vendor cannot name it, you will discover it.)
  • Versus buy-and-hold over the same dates? (If the bot underperforms holding, you paid complexity for less.)
  • Can I open the record myself? (A public account beats any dashboard number.)

Grid and DCA bots are not scams by nature — they are legitimate tools for specific market conditions. BuildIT Index applies the same discipline to backtests: recompute from raw data, model costs honestly, check walk-forward, and demand long windows before annualising anything.

The scam is the annualisation: dressing a conditional, short-window result as a yield. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

This article is educational, not financial advice. Past results do not predict future returns.