Concepts

Common terms in Pluto—trading pair, market data, strategy, backtest, trading bot—what they mean and where they live in the system.

When reading the docs or using the system, you will often see terms like trading pair, market data, strategy, backtest, and trading bot. This page explains these concepts and links to the relevant configuration or feature pages for quick reference.

Basics and Configuration

Trading Pair

A trading pair is a pair of assets traded against each other, usually a base currency and a quote currency, e.g. BTC/USDT (buy/sell BTC with USDT), ETH/USDT. In the system they are split into spot pairs (direct buy/sell of the asset) and futures pairs (e.g. perpetuals). You need to configure available trading pairs in the system before backtesting or live trading; pairs can be synced from the exchange or added manually.

Market Data

Market data is the basis for strategy analysis and trading decisions. It mainly includes:

  • Candlestick (OHLCV) data: Open, high, low, close, volume, etc., aggregated by timeframe (e.g. 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day).
  • Real-time quotes: Last price, 24h change, volume, bid/ask, etc.
  • Order book: Bid/ask prices and sizes.

The system uses market data to drive strategy signal calculation, backtesting, and live execution; data sync and completeness must be ensured.

Exchange and API

An exchange is where orders are executed. The system connects to exchanges via exchange APIs (API Key, Secret, etc.) to fetch quotes, place orders, and query accounts. You must complete exchange configuration and test the connection in the system before live trading and viewing assets. See Exchange Config.

Strategy and Backtest

Strategy

A strategy lives in the Strategy Library and describes when to buy and when to sell: buy / long & sell / short conditions, plus the technical indicators and parameters used in them (e.g. MA period, RSI threshold), combinable with AND / OR / NOT.

The strategy itself doesn't carry the trading pair, K-line timeframe, initial capital, position, or stops / targets—those execution-config items are set per pair when you create a backtest task or trading bot, so the same set of signals can be tuned independently across many pairs and accounts. See Strategy Basics and Create Strategy.

Execution Config

Execution config refers to per-pair runtime parameters: initial capital, position (fixed amount / percentage), stops / targets, max drawdown, scale-in rules, leverage, etc. It is attached to each trading pair under a backtest task or trading bot and, together with the bound strategy, forms a complete trading algorithm. See Execution Config.

Backtest

A backtest replays "strategy + execution config" over historical K-line data to produce return, max drawdown, win rate, Sharpe ratio, and other metrics for performance validation; no real capital is involved. A backtest task uses a task-level + per-pair-level two-layer structure (task-level: exchange, market type, time range; per-pair-level: K-line timeframe, initial capital, strategy, execution config), so a single task can run multiple pairs at once. See Backtest Basics and Run Backtest.

Technical Indicators and Candlesticks

Technical indicators are values computed from price, volume, etc., used to judge trend, overbought/oversold, etc., e.g. MA, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands. Strategy buy/sell conditions are often based on one or more indicators. Candlesticks are OHLCV (open, high, low, close, volume) aggregated over a fixed timeframe; they are the basis for computing indicators and running backtests. See Technical Indicators.

Trading Execution

Trading Bot

A trading bot is an automated execution unit that binds a strategy to an exchange account: it produces buy / sell signals on the selected pairs and uses the per-pair execution config to place orders, manage positions, and apply risk control. It supports Paper Trading (virtual capital) and Live Trading (real capital). The bot uses a bot-level + per-pair-level two-layer structure: the bot level decides the exchange, run mode, and overall safety-net risk control; each pair binds its own strategy, K-line timeframe, and execution config, and the bot's total capital usage is the sum of the per-pair allocations.

Bot and pair relationship:

  • One bot can manage multiple pairs on the same exchange: one bot can bind multiple pairs, each holding its own "strategy + execution config".
  • One pair can only belong to one bot: the same pair can't be managed by multiple bots simultaneously.

See Trading Basics, Trading Modes, Live Trading, Paper Trading.

Take-Profit, Stop-Loss, and Risk Control

  • Take-profit: automatically close the position to lock in profit when profit reaches the set ratio (or condition).
  • Stop-loss: automatically close the position to limit loss when loss reaches the set ratio (or condition).
  • Risk control: the execution config (stop-loss ratio, max drawdown, position cap, etc.) caps per-trade or overall risk; some scenarios also support profit protection. See Execution Config and Risk Management.

Auto Takeover

Auto takeover means the system takes over positions that you opened manually on the exchange, and manages closing them with preset take-profit, stop-loss, etc., without affecting orders opened automatically by the trading bot. See Auto Takeover.

Notifications and AI

Notification Configuration

Notification configuration sets the channels for alerts and event delivery (e.g. Telegram, email, Webhook group bot). You choose a channel and fill parameters per notification type (trading, takeover, market alerts, backtest results, AI Agent, etc.). Some types support smart reply (AI Agent auto-replies in the group). See Notification Config.

AI Agent

The AI Agent is the system’s conversational interface: it understands natural language and can trigger strategy, backtest, quotes, trading bot, etc.; execution is still done by the underlying trading system and risk rules. You must configure AI Config before use; to chat with AI Agent in a group, configure the channel in Notification Config and enable smart reply.

Next Steps