Stacking Sats on Kraken

First off: Here's to you, Bittr – you will be missed! 😢

This script is not a full replacement for the incredible service Bittr offered, but it's a start: Automate your Stacking Sats process by regularly placing buy orders using the Kraken API.

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The original Bittr is back! This script is still fully working.

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✋ Caveat

You need to install the dependency kraken-api, which is a third-party package. It has a minimal set of dependencies and I've done my best to audit its code. Also the version is fixed, so that unwanted changes do not slip in.

However: Use this at your own risk and decide for yourself whether or not you want to run this script and its dependencies!

🔑 API Key

Obtain your Kraken API Key via the API settings page. Generate a new API key dedicated for stacking using the "Query Funds" and "Modify Orders" permissions:

Only check the "Withdraw Funds" option if you plan to automatically withdraw Bitcoin from Kraken. See details below.

⚙️ Configuration

These are the environment variables used by the script:

# used to authenticate with Kraken
KRAKEN_API_KEY="apiKeyFromTheKrakenSettings"
KRAKEN_API_SECRET="privateKeyFromTheKrakenSettings"

# used for buying
KRAKEN_ORDER_TYPE="market" # "limit" (default) or "market"
KRAKEN_API_FIAT="USD" # the governmental shitcoin you are selling
KRAKEN_BUY_AMOUNT=21 # fiat amount you trade for the future of money
KRAKEN_FEE_CURRENCY="XBT" # pay fee in this currency, e.g. buying XBT for USD and paying fee in XBT

# used for withdrawal
KRAKEN_MAX_REL_FEE=0.5 # maximum fee in % that you are willing to pay
KRAKEN_WITHDRAW_KEY="descriptionOfWithdrawalAddress"

# set this if you live in Germany and get the 'EOrder:Trading agreement required' error
# see https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000920026--Trading-agreement-required-error-for-German-residents
KRAKEN_GERMANY_TRADING_AGREEMENT="agree"

# remove this line after verifying everything works
KRAKEN_DRY_RUN_PLACE_NO_ORDER=1

⚡️ RaspiBlitz Integration

This script ships with the RaspiBlitz (v1.6 and above).

You can enable it via the Console of your RaspiBlitz. Leave the main menu via the last option "Console" and use the following commands:

# enable the script
./config.scripts/bonus.stacking-sats-kraken.sh on

# switch to the stackingsats user
sudo su - stackingsats

# edit your configuration (see the "Configuration" section above)
nano /mnt/hdd/app-data/stacking-sats-kraken/.env

# follow the instructions from the first step to set up a cronjob
crontab -e

Here is an example for a daily cronjob at 6:15am ...

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
15 6 * * * /home/stackingsats/stacking-sats-kraken/stacksats.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

Note: Do not run npm directly on the RaspiBlitz, like show in the examples below. Please use the /home/stackingsats/stacking-sats-kraken/stacksats.sh shell script instead, as this loads your configuration.

To run the script manually, switch to the stackingsats user and use this command:

# switch to the stackingsats user
sudo su - stackingsats

# run the script
./stacking-sats-kraken/stacksats.sh

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📦 Custom Setup

Prerequisite: At least the current LTS version of Node.js.

Install the dependencies:

npm install

Setup the environment variables for the script. See the config section above.

Use a dry run to test the script and see the output without placing an order:

npm run test:stack

You should see something like this sample output:

💰 Balance: 210000.00 USD / 21.0 XBT

📈 Ask: 21000.2 USD
📉 Bid: 21000.1 USD

💸 Order: buy 0.21212121 XBTUSD @ limit 21000.1
📎 Transaction ID: 2121212121

🤑 Stack sats

When you are good to go, execute this command in a regular interval:

npm run stack

The best and easiest way is to wrap it all up in a shell script. This script can be triggered via cron job, e.g. weekly, daily or hourly.

Here's a sample stacksats.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

export KRAKEN_API_KEY="apiKeyFromTheKrakenSettings"
export KRAKEN_API_SECRET="privateKeyFromTheKrakenSettings"
export KRAKEN_ORDER_TYPE="market"
export KRAKEN_API_FIAT="USD"
export KRAKEN_BUY_AMOUNT=21
export KRAKEN_MAX_REL_FEE=0.5
export KRAKEN_WITHDRAW_KEY="descriptionOfWithdrawalAddress"
export KRAKEN_DRY_RUN_PLACE_NO_ORDER=1

# run script
cd $(cd `dirname $0` && pwd)
cmd=${1:-"stack"}

if [[ "${KRAKEN_DRY_RUN_PLACE_NO_ORDER}" ]]; then
  result=$(npm run test:$cmd --silent 2>&1)
else
  result=$(npm run $cmd --silent 2>&1)
fi
echo "$result"

# optional: send yourself an email
recipient="satstacker@example.org"
echo "Subject: Sats got stacked
From: satstacker@example.org
To: $recipient $result" | /usr/sbin/sendmail $recipient

Make it executable with chmod +x stacksats.sh and go wild.

Stay humble! 🙏

🔑 Withdrawal

Holding significant amounts on an exchange is never a good idea. You should regularly take ownership of your coins by withdrawing to your own wallet. This can either be done manually or it can be automated. The script provided here will only withdraw to a previously defined Bitcoin address if the relative fees do not exceed a certain limit.

It is optional to run the withdrawal script.

Example 1

• Max. relative fee: 0.5%
• Fixed Kraken fee: ₿ 0.00050
• Balance: ₿ 0.06000 ➡️ No withdrawal since fee actual (0.83%) is too high

Example 2

• Max. relative fee: 0.5%
• Fixed Kraken fee: ₿ 0.00050
• Balance: ₿ 0.12000 ➡️ Withdrawal executed since actual fee (0.42%) is low enough

In case you plan to automatically withdraw from Kraken, a withdrawal method must first be defined. If you already set up a methode you can reuse it. Otherwise generate a new one by going to Funding > Bitcoin (XBT) withdraw > Add address. The description field will later be used as an environment variable in the script.

To test the withdrawal of funds to your defined address run:

npm run test:withdraw

You should see something like this:

💡  Relative fee of withdrawal amount: 5.57%
❌  Fee is too high – max rel. fee: 0.50%

It is recommended to run the withdrawal script every time you stacked sats:

npm run withdraw

Since it can take a couple seconds or minutes for your order to fill, you should run the following script a couple hours later after the stacking script. Just set up a second cron job which executes the withdrawal script.

If you are using the aforementioned stacksats.sh script you can withdraw via this command: stacksats.sh withdraw