
Futures grid trading is a structured way to automate trading in perpetual futures when you expect price to move within a defined range. Instead of watching charts all day, you can use a futures grid bot to place a series of buy and sell orders automatically. This article explains what futures grid trading is, how a futures grid strategy works, and how to use futures grid bot settings on the Bitunix exchange.
Futures grid trading does not guarantee profits. Results depend on market conditions. Using leverage can increase both potential gains and potential losses, including liquidation risk.
What Is Futures Grid Trading?
It is an automated strategy where a bot places multiple limit orders inside a predefined price range for a perpetual futures pair. You decide the minimum price, maximum price, number of grids, direction, leverage, and margin amount. The futures grid bot then calculates grid levels and places orders at those levels.
The goal of a futures grid strategy is to capture repeated price movement within the range. The bot aims to buy at lower grid levels and sell at higher grid levels as price moves back and forth. On the Bitunix exchange, you can set the direction to long or short depending on your market view.
How a Futures Grid Bot Works

A futures grid bot splits your chosen range into smaller intervals called grids. Each interval represents a price level where the bot may place a limit order. When price moves down into lower grids, the bot can place buy orders. When price moves up into higher grids, the bot can place sell orders. Over time, this can create multiple small realized gains when price continues to oscillate inside the range.
A crypto futures grid bot works best when price stays inside your chosen range. If price breaks out and remains outside, the bot may stop trading or pause, depending on platform logic and the conditions of the selected pair.
Futures Grid Strategy Explained
A futures grid strategy is rules based and range focused. You define the structure, and the bot executes it. The strategy is commonly used when you expect sideways movement, repeated swings, or stable volatility conditions.
Typical scenarios include:
- Range bound markets where price respects support and resistance
- Moderate volatility where price swings occur without a sustained trend
- Structured trading plans where entries and exits follow fixed rules
If the market trends strongly in one direction, grid performance can weaken because fewer trades may occur within the range, or the bot may pause if price leaves the range.
Futures Grid Parameters Explained
Futures grid parameters explained clearly can help avoid common setup mistakes. The most important inputs control how often the bot trades, how much profit is targeted per grid, and how much risk you take.
Price range
Your price range is the boundary where the bot can trade.
- Min price is the lower bound of the range.
- Max price is the upper bound of the range.
If price exits the range, the bot may pause until price returns.
Number of grids
The number of grids sets how many intervals the bot uses inside the range. More grids typically means:
- Smaller spacing between orders
- Lower profit per grid
- More potential trade frequency
Fewer grids typically mean:
- Wider spacing between orders
- Higher profit per grid
- Fewer trades
On Bitunix, the number of grids can be set from 2 to 200.
Direction: Futures grid long vs short
Futures grid long vs short determines the bias of the strategy.
- Long grid is generally used when you expect price to trend upward within the range or recover after dips.
- Short grid is generally used when you expect price to trend downward within the range or reject rallies.
Direction selection matters because unrealized PnL can move against you if price trends opposite to your bias.
Futures grid leverage settings
Futures grid leverage settings affect margin requirements and liquidation distance. Higher leverage can make the strategy more capital efficient, but it also brings liquidation closer and increases sensitivity to price moves.
For a general approach, you can think of leverage as:
- Low leverage for stronger risk control
- Medium leverage for balanced capital use
- High leverage for aggressive positioning with higher liquidation risk
Leverage should be matched with your margin size, range width, and stop loss plan.
Margin amount
Margin is the amount you allocate to run the strategy. On Bitunix, the system calculates a minimum investment requirement based on your parameters. Your margin must be higher than the minimum shown.
Futures grid bot risk management
Futures grid bot risk management mainly comes from setting boundaries and limits.
- Use a price range that aligns with realistic market structure
- Avoid ranges that are too tight for volatile assets
- Use take profit and stop loss where appropriate
- Avoid setting leverage higher than your risk tolerance
- Allocate margin so that temporary adverse moves do not force liquidation
How to Use Futures Grid Bot on the Bitunix Website
This section is a practical, step-by-step guide to setting up Futures Grid on the Bitunix web trading interface.
Step 1: Prepare funds (USDT in Spot Account)
Before you create a Futures Grid bot, make sure you have enough USDT in your Spot Account.
On Bitunix, Futures Grid Trading uses Spot Account funds as collateral. This helps prevent bot allocations from affecting cross margin positions in your Futures Account. If grid margin were taken from the Futures Account, it could reduce the available margin supporting open cross margin positions and increase liquidation pressure during volatility.
To prepare funds using Internal Transfer:
- Log in to the Bitunix website.
- Open Assets.
- Click Internal Transfer.
- Set the transfer direction from Futures Account → Spot Account.
- Select USDT, enter the amount, then click Confirm.
- Return to Assets and confirm your Spot Account USDT balance has updated.
Important: Each grid bot is independent. Allocate margin per bot and avoid committing most of your available funds to one strategy.
Step 2: Open Futures and switch to Grid

- In the top navigation bar, click Futures.
- On the right-side trading panel, click the Grid tab (next to Futures).
- Choose your direction at the top: Long or Short.
Note: On the website, Futures Grid settings are configured in the right panel under Grid, while the chart remains on the left.
Step 3: Set the Price Range
In the Price Range section:
- Enter the Lowest price (minimum).
- Enter the Highest price (maximum).
- To reset your inputs, click Clear Data.
Tip: The bot trades only within this range. If price moves outside the range, the bot may pause until price returns.
Step 4: Set Grid Quantity and method
- In Grid Quantity, enter the number of grids (range: 2 to 200).
- Confirm the grid method shown (for example, Arithmetic).
General guidance:
- More grids usually means tighter spacing, smaller profit per grid, and potentially more trade frequency.
- Fewer grids usually means wider spacing, larger profit per grid, and fewer trades.
Step 5: Set Margin and Leverage
- Under Margin, enter the margin you want to allocate to the bot.
- Select your leverage from the dropdown (for example, 5X).
Reminder: Higher leverage increases liquidation risk and reduces your margin buffer. Match leverage with your range width and risk tolerance.
Step 6: Set TP/SL (optional)
- Enable TP / SL if you want additional risk control.
- Enter your take profit and stop loss trigger levels based on your plan.
Step 7: Create the grid bot
- Review your settings: direction, price range, grid quantity, leverage, and margin.
- Click Create to start the strategy.
Step 8: Monitor and manage your bot
After creation, monitor the bot in the Futures interface. If the bot pauses, the most common reason is that market price has moved outside your selected range. When price returns to the range, the bot can resume trading, depending on the pair status and platform conditions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t I create a bot?
If you cannot create a bot, check:
- Available balance is sufficient
- You have not reached the maximum number of running bots
- Your parameters meet platform rules, including reasonable price range and grid count
Where did the funds go after creation?
After creation, the system transfers funds to a dedicated Bot Account for grid trading. You can view bot funds and performance in Assets then Bot.
Why is the bot paused?
A bot may pause if price moves outside your set range or if the futures pair is under maintenance. Futures Grid trades only within the defined range. When price returns to the range, the bot resumes automatically if the pair is active.
Why is Total PnL negative but Grid Profit positive?
Grid Profit is realized profit from completed grid trades. Total PnL includes unrealized PnL from the open position. If the market temporarily moves against your position direction, unrealized losses can exceed realized grid profit, making Total PnL negative in the short term.
What happens when I manually stop the bot?
When you stop the bot, the system cancels open orders and closes the position at the market price at that time. Market execution depends on order book depth and liquidity, so the final price may differ from expectations and can result in small slippage.
Conclusion
Futures grid trading is a rules based approach to automating perpetual futures trades within a defined range. By setting clear futures grid parameters explained in advance, choosing futures grid long vs short correctly, and applying sensible futures grid leverage settings, you can use a futures grid bot to execute a structured strategy with less manual monitoring. On the Bitunix exchange, you can create, monitor, and stop bots directly in the app, with each strategy operating independently.
Glossary
- Futures grid trading: An automated strategy that places buy and sell limit orders at multiple price levels within a predefined range to capture repeated price swings.
- Futures grid bot: A bot that executes a futures grid strategy automatically using your chosen parameters.
- Crypto futures grid bot: A futures grid bot used specifically for crypto perpetual futures markets.
- Futures grid strategy: A rules based approach that divides a price range into grids and aims to profit from movements between levels rather than predicting a single trend.
- Price range: The minimum and maximum price boundaries where the bot is allowed to trade. If price exits the range, the bot may pause.
- Grid: A single price interval within the range where the bot places limit orders.
- Number of grids: How many intervals the range is split into. More grids usually means tighter spacing and smaller profit per grid.
- Futures grid long: A configuration used when you expect price to move upward within the range.
- Futures grid short: A configuration used when you expect price to move downward within the range.
- Leverage: A feature that increases position size relative to margin. Higher leverage increases both potential gains and liquidation risk.
- Futures grid leverage settings: The leverage level you choose for the grid strategy, affecting margin needs and how close liquidation can be.
- Margin: The amount of funds allocated to support the strategy and absorb price movements.
- Liquidation: Forced position closure when losses exceed available margin, which can happen faster with higher leverage.
- Grid profit: Realized profit from completed grid buy and sell trades.
- Unrealized PnL: Profit or loss from the current open position that changes with market price until the position is closed.
- Total PnL: The combined result of realized grid profit and unrealized PnL.
- Take profit (TP): A preset trigger that closes positions to lock in gains when a target is reached.
- Stop loss (SL): A preset trigger that closes positions to limit losses when price moves against the strategy.
- Bot account: A dedicated account where allocated strategy funds are held separately for independent execution and tracking.
About Bitunix
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