Investigation of liquidation bots on DyDx reveals that basically 100% of these bots have access to the off-chain prices published via the ScuttleButt network.
An example of the traceback of such a bot is here:
You’ll notice the first thing each of these bots does is make a poke
to the oracle with the new prices from ScuttleButt, to effect the liquidation. It’s basically impossible to profitably run a liquidations bot without being the poster of the prices.
After searching everywhere for how to get access to these prices I’m left feeling confused. Some of the discussion here seems to indicate that you need to be providing some kind of community service to get access.
However, it’s easily observable on the blockchain that hundreds of bot operators already have access to these price feeds off-chain, and are using them daily to trade liquidations on various markets. Therefore, it is clearly unfair not to allow the public to access these prices, as the effect is to permission only select people to make millions of dollars in profit in a super centralised and sandboxed environment where no-one else is allowed to compete.
If this is not the case, what is the process for getting access to these prices off-chain? There doesn’t appear to be any public information clarifying this.
Thanks!