The Double Fail That Wasn't

So I saw spacexbt and DidiTrading talking about insider tracking bots for Polymarket. Space mentioned he built one in about 3 hours. I'm a sucker for hype, so of course I had to build my own.

But here's where it gets interesting. Instead of just diving in, I did what I always do: I started overengineering the preparation phase.

First fail: I built a todo list website. A whole HTML/CSS thing where you can click through the steps. Beautiful checkboxes. Nice design. Completely unnecessary. It was so useless that I didn't even open it myself while building the bot, so I can only assume nobody else will either. I initially thought it would be quick content I could share on X. Spoiler: it wasn't quick.

Second fail: I then spent over an hour tweaking the design of that todo list. Changed the layout multiple times. Rewrote the content. Perfectionism kicked in for something that literally nobody asked for.

Classic Wenzel moment. I've been self-employed for 20 years, and I still fall into this trap.

Here's the twist I didn't expect.

By obsessing over that stupid todo list, I had actually forced myself to think through every single aspect of the bot. What data do I need? What endpoints? What filters make sense? How do I avoid spam? What's the detection logic?

When I finally opened Codex, I didn't have a vague idea. I had a complete PRD (Product Requirements Document). Every edge case thought through. Every config parameter defined.

I dumped the whole thing into Codex and... 30 minutes later, the bot was done. Autonomously built by the AI agent while I grabbed a beer.

spacexbt needed 3 hours. I needed 30 minutes.

But let's be real: I also spent 3 hours on that todo list beforehand. So in total? Same time. The difference is that I now have a detailed PRD that I can share, iterate on, and use as a foundation for improvements.

Now here's where I need to be transparent, because there's way too much bullshit in this space.

Yes, the bot works. It polls Polymarket trades every second, filters for large trades (2k+ USD), checks if the wallet has been inactive, and sends Discord alerts. Technically, it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

But no, this is not a money printer.

In its current state, the bot is very basic. Even if you improve it massively, add ML models, track PnL, whatever... it can only ever be a small decision-making aid. Not a crystal ball. Not alpha that makes you rich on autopilot.

I see too many people on social media claiming they made crazy money with bots like this. Maybe some did. But for every winner, there are 100 people who lost money by blindly trusting alerts. Don't be that person.

I want more honesty and transparency in the online world. Especially in crypto. Especially in AI. Especially where those two overlap.

So I'm sharing my complete PRD below. Not because it's perfect, but because:

1. You'll learn more by building your own bot (even if it's just prompting Claude Code or Codex) than by copy-pasting someone else's code

2. You can see exactly what goes into something like this

3. You can call me out if my approach is dumb

The bot will eventually become part of thethirdeye.xyz and be available to users there once it's properly fine-tuned. But for now, I want to document the journey publicly.

Quick shoutout to everyone who's been supportive since I launched thethirdeye.xyz

. The feedback, the engagement, the questions... it means a lot. Building in public is scary, but also incredibly rewarding when people actually give a shit.

If you want to follow along as I improve this bot and share more details, you know what to do. I'll be posting updates over the next days and weeks.

And yes, I would appreciate likes and shares. Not for the ego (okay, maybe a little), but because I genuinely believe we need more transparency in this space. The more people see real, honest content about what these tools can and cannot do, the better.

Let's go.

Below is the complete PRD I used. Feel free to use it, modify it, improve it. If you build something cool with it, let me know.

You can simply copy and paste the whole thing, dump it into Codex (or Claude), and get a working bot. It worked for me.

One bug I ran into that you should watch out for: The Polymarket API returns timestamps in Unix seconds, but JavaScript's Datenow() returns milliseconds. If you compare them directly, every trade gets filtered as "old". I've added explicit notes about this in the PRD below.

That's it. Now go build something. ❤️

The Double Fail That Wasn't

So I saw spacexbt and DidiTrading talking about insider tracking bots for Polymarket. Space mentioned he built one in about 3 hours. I'm a sucker for hype, so of course I had to build my own.

But here's where it gets interesting. Instead of just diving in, I did what I always do: I started overengineering the preparation phase.

First fail: I built a todo list website. A whole HTML/CSS thing where you can click through the steps. Beautiful checkboxes. Nice design. Completely unnecessary. It was so useless that I didn't even open it myself while building the bot, so I can only assume nobody else will either. I initially thought it would be quick content I could share on X. Spoiler: it wasn't quick.

Second fail: I then spent over an hour tweaking the design of that todo list. Changed the layout multiple times. Rewrote the content. Perfectionism kicked in for something that literally nobody asked for.

Classic Wenzel moment. I've been self-employed for 20 years, and I still fall into this trap.

Here's the twist I didn't expect.

By obsessing over that stupid todo list, I had actually forced myself to think through every single aspect of the bot. What data do I need? What endpoints? What filters make sense? How do I avoid spam? What's the detection logic?

When I finally opened Codex, I didn't have a vague idea. I had a complete PRD (Product Requirements Document). Every edge case thought through. Every config parameter defined.

I dumped the whole thing into Codex and... 30 minutes later, the bot was done. Autonomously built by the AI agent while I grabbed a beer.

spacexbt needed 3 hours. I needed 30 minutes.

But let's be real: I also spent 3 hours on that todo list beforehand. So in total? Same time. The difference is that I now have a detailed PRD that I can share, iterate on, and use as a foundation for improvements.

Now here's where I need to be transparent, because there's way too much bullshit in this space.

Yes, the bot works. It polls Polymarket trades every second, filters for large trades (2k+ USD), checks if the wallet has been inactive, and sends Discord alerts. Technically, it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

But no, this is not a money printer.

In its current state, the bot is very basic. Even if you improve it massively, add ML models, track PnL, whatever... it can only ever be a small decision-making aid. Not a crystal ball. Not alpha that makes you rich on autopilot.

I see too many people on social media claiming they made crazy money with bots like this. Maybe some did. But for every winner, there are 100 people who lost money by blindly trusting alerts. Don't be that person.

I want more honesty and transparency in the online world. Especially in crypto. Especially in AI. Especially where those two overlap.

So I'm sharing my complete PRD below. Not because it's perfect, but because:

1. You'll learn more by building your own bot (even if it's just prompting Claude Code or Codex) than by copy-pasting someone else's code

2. You can see exactly what goes into something like this

3. You can call me out if my approach is dumb

The bot will eventually become part of thethirdeye.xyz and be available to users there once it's properly fine-tuned. But for now, I want to document the journey publicly.

Quick shoutout to everyone who's been supportive since I launched thethirdeye.xyz

. The feedback, the engagement, the questions... it means a lot. Building in public is scary, but also incredibly rewarding when people actually give a shit.

If you want to follow along as I improve this bot and share more details, you know what to do. I'll be posting updates over the next days and weeks.

And yes, I would appreciate likes and shares. Not for the ego (okay, maybe a little), but because I genuinely believe we need more transparency in this space. The more people see real, honest content about what these tools can and cannot do, the better.

Let's go.

Below is the complete PRD I used. Feel free to use it, modify it, improve it. If you build something cool with it, let me know.

You can simply copy and paste the whole thing, dump it into Codex (or Claude), and get a working bot. It worked for me.

One bug I ran into that you should watch out for: The Polymarket API returns timestamps in Unix seconds, but JavaScript's Datenow() returns milliseconds. If you compare them directly, every trade gets filtered as "old". I've added explicit notes about this in the PRD below.

That's it. Now go build something. ❤️