How to Run a Self-Healing Crypto Trading Bot for Free Using Freqtrade

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A developer guide published on DEV Community outlines how to build a zero-cost, automated crypto trading bot using Freqtrade and a custom watchdog script on Linux or WSL2. The setup is designed to run in dry-run mode, meaning no real money or exchange credentials are required, making it safe for strategy validation. The watchdog component automatically restarts the bot if it crashes, logs profit-and-loss snapshots at regular intervals, and enforces a user-defined drawdown limit to manage risk. Backtesting results across three strategies over a 200-day window showed that sample size and profit factor matter more than headline return figures when evaluating a strategy's viability. The guide emphasizes that a bot silently dying mid-experiment can invalidate weeks of data collection, making automated process monitoring a critical — yet often overlooked — part of any trading setup.

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