Don't have much time to work on this sadly. Still need to figure out the Autofold automation library.
In the far far future, I would like to create a no-code bot interface to help people like Zvi. Although the AI stuff seems a bit too complex.
2
Trading bot guide
Project summary
Manifold has quite a few barriers surrounding the API. I hope to fix them!
What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
Project 1: Improving the API
Currently, many power users build their own specialized tools, such as Isaac's search tool, to improve the Manifold experience. However, many features of the Manifold API are undocumented, putting new traders at a disadvantage. I hope to level the playing field by making the API more accessible to all by improving the API infrastructure for end users: updating the API docs, updating API wrapper libraries with new features, and possibly exposing more API endpoints. In addition, some power users are known to query Supabase directly to reduce API lag; I will also make that accessible to everyone in some manner.
Project 2: Manifold trading bot guide
Many commonly used APIs have a "getting started" section, and beginner-friendly examples to accompany the documentation. Unfortunately, Manifold is missing out on many potential API users and bots. I will create a getting started page and a guide on the Manifold API docs to encourage more new API users and bots. The getting started page should be pretty simple, and I hope to model the guide off something like this discord.js guide. I will also provide technical support for the guide in the discord.
How will this funding be used?
My hourly rate for a real job is roughly $40 an hour, however I will pay myself $20 an hour for this project. The opportunity costs for this project include working on scientific research projects, which have quite a significant importance to me.
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
The team is just me, for now. Currently, I am a computer science student, and I have been programming for around 8 years now. In my free time, I have won prizes from hackathons. Last summer, I was an intern at a large publicly traded tech company, and successfully automated many previously manual tests using python.
I have sufficiently experience with the Manifold API. My bot has been working for over a month, and I constantly implement new trading features.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)
I get distracted and run out of time. This is the most likely reason for failure. I am a busy student, but can pick it back up during summers and breaks. I can dedicate roughly 10-20 hours a week to this, depending on my schedule.
I am not familiar enough with the Manifold codebase. I have some experience with React, but not a lot. I am confident I can familiarize myself, given sufficient time.
Manifold breaks its API, charges higher API trading fees, or paywalls the API. The API paywall has been discussed in this Notion post. I do not think this scenario is a high priority or possibility for Manifold, as Manifold is in the growth phase of a startup. However, there is a larger possibility of Manifold restricting access to Supabase due to costs, in which case that portion of project 1 will not be carried out.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
None
Update
I will only pursue project 2, as Sinclair is working on major API changes.
holds 99%
🍉
nikki
10 months ago
Progress update
What progress have you made since your last update?
I am prioritizing the trading bot guide, and targeting people interested in quant. I feel like this has great potential to be successful since Manifold uses play money and has a great community, which is good for people new to quant.
What are your next steps?
Changing my trading bot guide to use https://github.com/willjallen/AutoFold since it has more features and is more complete. I am familiarizing myself with the API in order to make contributions.
Is there anything others could help you with?
If willjallen would like to join my project, I am more than welcome to share funding.
Manifold Markets
11 months ago
December 15th Evaluation Results
Valuations: 0, 0, 0, 2000, 1000, 0
Median Valuation: 0
James: I don't see any output yet.
SG: It seems they haven't released anything yet.
Rachel: Writing docs for the API is probably good, and something Manifold would pay for. Though I agree with Austin’s comment that the current valuation is too high. Let me know if you (via Discord or reply to this comment on Manifund) want it changed.
Sinclair: I think this is extremely valuable, and is the path through which a lot of other community projects flow through. I'd love to see people in the community owning more the task of making the api great, because 1) that's probably the only way it stays good, and 2) it's not the kind of thing that the Manifold team is good at. I think a more community-run api is quite likely to be better performing and cheaper, paying for itself.
Inga Wei: Yes for more bots!
Austin: I don’t have much to add beyond my original statement. Making the API more accessible (either with better documentation, or an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to get started) is something I’d love to see; please let us know when you have something we can test out!
Austin Chen
11 months ago
I definitely think the Manifold API experience could be greatly improved and mentioned on Discord that a guide that gets users to create bots would be great! So I am offering $200 as a token of support towards that. I do think the financial numbers on this proposal may not make a lot of sense from the investor's perspective though; a $10k total valuation implies that 1/3 of all of the value of Manifold Community Fund's $10k pool will be awarded to this project, which doesn't seem super likely.
@nikki, I might suggest lowering at least the minimum funding, and perhaps the valuation too. Right now, at $6000 that implies you would spend 150-300 hours at the minimum on these projects, at your quoted rate of $20-$40; I think it's better to plan to start small (eg 20-40 hours to start) and hold on to more equity, which you can continue to sell once you've started showing results!