What the bot is actually doing
It is not guessing which way the price will go. It places a buy a little under the market and a sell a little over it, and earns the gap when other traders trade against both. That is market making, and it is the same job in every Vesper mode.
What separates a good run from a bad one is cost. Ondo charges a fee on every fill, and every so often the price keeps running after your order is taken, so the inventory you are left holding is worth slightly less than you paid for it. Both together make one number: cost per million dollars traded, or CPM, and lower is better. The maker fee alone is 80 CPM on Ondo, so that is the floor nobody can go under.
Sniper attacks the second half of that cost — the part that comes from being on the wrong side of a move. Its whole design is about when to be in the book rather than how tightly to quote. For the long version of the mechanics, the Argent guide walks through the same ideas at a slower pace.
Ten hours in, fourteen hours out
Not every hour of the day costs the same to quote in. Around the US cash open and through the busiest part of the American session, price runs are longer and makers get picked off harder. Late in the European evening and through the Asian morning the tape is calmer and the same quotes survive longer. We measured that on recorded Ondo fills, and Sniper simply refuses to be in the book outside the cheap stretch.
- Weekdays
Two windows: 03:00–10:00 and 21:00–24:00 UTC. Everything between is skipped on purpose.
- Weekends
Quoting runs around the clock. With the US session out of the picture the weekday pattern disappears and the cheap hours are spread evenly, so there is nothing to skip. It winds down again late on Sunday.
- Before each close
Twelve minutes out it stops opening new inventory, then pulls every quote and closes what it holds on all its markets.
- While asleep
The session stays alive. Your counters keep running, and the dashboard prints the time of the next window.
This is the trade-off to understand before you start: fewer hours in the book means less volume per day than a mode that quotes non-stop. Sniper is for people who would rather trade less and pay less per fill.
Two markets, picked at every window
Sniper is the only Vesper mode with no market picker. When a window opens it scores four Ondo markets — gold (XAU), silver (XAG), the S&P 500 (US500) and the Nasdaq 100 (US100) — and keeps the best two, then splits your margin between them and quotes both at once.
- Live spread
How wide the book is right now. A market whose spread has blown out past 12 basis points is dropped from the running entirely.
- Yesterday's real cost
What each market actually cost per fill over the last 24 hours, computed from venue fills rather than from an opinion. It refreshes every half hour, so “silver is cheap today” is something the bot can notice by itself.
- A correlation guard
The second market has to move independently of the first. Gold and silver rise and fall together, so they are never picked as a pair; neither are the two US indices. You get a metal and an index, which is the point — two correlated markets would be one bet in two accounts.
Why these four and not the whole venue: they are the only Ondo markets with enough depth on both sides for a maker to work in. Across our whole fleet history the difference between them is real and worth chasing — the S&P 500 has run at 118 CPM against gold's 136, with the gap coming from price movement rather than from fees.
Because the pick happens at each window open, two sessions started minutes apart can legitimately be on different markets. That is the mode working.
Create the Ondo account with our code
This is the step people skip, and it is the one that cannot be undone. Ondo admits new accounts
by referral only. Open the invite link — it carries the code 867C4M
— create the account there, and fund it with the collateral you plan to trade.
Already have an Ondo account made some other way? It will not pass the connect step and there is no way to attach a referral to it afterwards. Create a fresh one through the link. If you want the account side explained click by click, the Ondo guide covers exactly that.
One signature, no API keys
Open the connect page and pick Ondo. You sign a single message in your wallet and Vesper mints a trade-only key: it can place and cancel orders, and it cannot move your funds anywhere. Nothing to generate, copy or store, and you can revoke it whenever you like.
Sniper, and the market picker disappears
Go to Settings → Strategy and choose Sniper. Two things change on the page straight away: the market list vanishes, because the mode picks its own markets, and the stop-loss and run-limit switches turn themselves off.
The card to look for. The Prime hours tag is the clock behaviour.
Where it sits in the list, below the two single-market modes.
The summary confirms it: coin reads Auto and the stop is off.
The stop-loss is off by default rather than removed. A market maker holds inventory, and while it holds, the unrealised number swings; a small stop ends a healthy session mid-swing. We have watched a session run a full day and over a thousand fills and then halt on a one-dollar swing. Turn it back on in Settings if you want it, but set it wide.
How much it puts to work
You set two things: how much collateral to deploy and the leverage. Together they give the buying power, and Vesper sizes each order and the inventory ceiling from that. Remember that in Sniper the margin is split between two markets, so each leg gets about half of what a single-market mode would use.
Then press Start and sign once more. If the clock is inside a window, quoting begins within a minute or two — the first minutes are spent reading the book on purpose. If you start outside a window, the session goes straight to sleep and tells you when it will wake. That is normal and you do not need to press anything again.
CPM is the number to watch, net of the venue's maker rebate. It needs volume before it means anything — on the first handful of fills it swings wildly.
Reading the dashboard, including the quiet parts
The pulse card narrates what the bot is doing in plain words. In Sniper there is one line you will see that no other mode shows, and it is the one that worries people the first time:
- Sleeping
“Sniper: sleeping — outside prime hours; next window 03:00 UTC.” The window closed, the position was closed out with it, and the session is waiting. Nothing is stuck.
- Making markets
Both orders are in the book on both of its markets.
- Working off inventory
It is holding a position and quoting only the side that reduces it, as a maker, to avoid paying the taker fee on the way out.
- Holding for calm
Price ran and it stepped aside deliberately. After four fills in a row on the same side within a minute it widens by 1.5 basis points and waits — that is the anti-run guard, and it is what stops a trend from feeding on you.
A Sniper session that shows no fills for hours in the middle of the UTC day is doing exactly what you chose. Check the clock above before you check for a fault.
What it does differently inside a window
- Queue-aware quoting
It looks at how much size is ahead of it at the best price. When the queue is thick it does not bother fighting for a spot it will not reach.
- Anti-run
Four same-side fills inside a minute and it backs off for 45 seconds. Runs used to be most of the damage; this is the guard that killed them.
- Patient exits
It gives an exit five minutes to fill as a maker before it gives up and takes the price, because the taker fee is what turns a small loss into a real one.
- Hard inventory limits
Nothing is held longer than ten minutes, and a position that drifts 25 basis points against it is closed without waiting.
Before you start
- Do I really need the referral code?
- Yes. Ondo is invite-gated, so the account must be created through
our link with
code
867C4M. An account made another way is refused at the connect step, and a referral cannot be attached to it afterwards. - Why does my session show no activity?
- Check the clock. Outside 03:00–10:00 and 21:00–24:00 UTC on a weekday, Sniper is closed out and asleep by design, and the dashboard names the time of the next window.
- Can I tell it which market to trade?
- Not in Sniper — choosing is the feature. If you want to pin one market yourself, use Argent for gold or the S&P 500, or Vulcan for gold.
- How much money does it need?
- Enough that half of your margin still sizes a sensible order on each of two markets. The cabinet prints the order size it will use under the slider before you press Start.
- Can it withdraw my funds?
- No. The key it signs can place and cancel orders and nothing else. There is no withdrawal path in it, and you can revoke it at any moment.
What Sniper cannot do
Trade all day. Roughly ten hours out of twenty-four on weekdays. If you want volume above all else, this is the wrong mode.
Let you choose the market. It picks two and splits your margin between them.
Promise a return. It earns on turnover and loses on inventory that moves against it. Individual sessions end down.
Move your funds. The trade-only key has no withdrawal path, by construction.
Code 867C4M. Account created?
Connect it and start.