Bot

In crypto, a bot is software that carries out repetitive or time-sensitive actions on its own, and the term covers a much wider range of jobs than spam filtering alone.

On messaging platforms like Telegram, moderation bots screen new members, answer frequently asked questions, and delete messages that match known scam patterns. A separate class, trading bots, connects to an exchange or a wallet and places orders automatically. On centralized exchanges, bots commonly run dollar-cost-averaging or grid strategies through an API key rather than a login. On decentralized exchanges, "sniper" bots instead watch a token's launch transaction directly and fire a buy the instant trading opens, racing other bots for the same opening seconds of liquidity.

A related category, MEV bots, profits by reordering or inserting transactions around ordinary trades, for example "sandwiching" a swap by buying just before it and selling right after at an inflated price. Because of this, several popular trading bots now route orders through private transaction channels specifically to reduce MEV exposure for their users.

Bots carry real risk alongside their convenience. Handing a bot wallet access or trading permissions means trusting its underlying code and its operators; a handful of bots have suffered smart-contract exploits that drained connected user funds. Fake "verification" bots impersonating well-known services are also a common phishing tool on Telegram, built to harvest seed phrases or push malware rather than automate anything legitimate. A bot that buys a token early is not automatically a good trade either, since many freshly launched tokens are honeypots that block or penalize selling.