Federico Variola on Why Crypto Traders Turn to Strategy Trading

As crypto markets mature, more traders are confronting a practical question. How do you trade actively in a market that never stops without being mentally present all the time? Increasingly, the answer is not better prediction or faster reactions, but strategy trading, where execution follows predefined rules rather than moment-to-moment judgment. On many platforms, that shift is expressed through trading bots, which translate strategy into consistent execution.

In a recent conversation with BeInCrypto, Federico Variola, CEO of Phemex, discusses how those dynamics are influencing the way traders approach execution, and why strategy-driven tools, including trading bots, are increasingly used to bring structure to continuous markets.

BeInCrypto: Crypto markets never switch off. What structural reality do traders tend to ignore, and how does that shape their behavior over time?

Federico Variola: What many traders underestimate is how unforgiving a 24/7 market is for human decision-making. There’s no open or close, no reset in crypto. People, on the other hand, get tired, distracted, and emotionally invested and that gap matters.

Most traders respond by trying harder: watching longer, reacting faster, believing discipline is just effort. Over time, that breaks down: fatigue sets in, emotions creep in, and trading becomes reactive. This isn’t about experience necessarily, it’s structural. Humans are trying to manually operate in a market that never stops.

That’s why separating judgment from execution matters. You define the rules once and let execution follow consistently, rather than asking for perfect decisions every minute. This is the logic behind structured tools like trading bots: reducing emotional interference.

Traders who accept this shift stop chasing every move and start focusing on process and repeatability. That alone makes it possible to stay engaged without burning out.

BeInCrypto: At what point did it become clear to you that the limits of manual trading in crypto were structural, not just about individual skill?

Federico Variola: Spending time observing how users actually behave revealed clear patterns. Over time, the same issues show up across experience levels: beginners struggle, experienced traders burn out, and while the symptoms differ, the outcomes are often similar.

From a user-first perspective, that’s a strong signal. When many users face the same challenges despite understanding the risks and mechanics, the limitation isn’t individual skill.

What we saw repeatedly was that traders didn’t fail due to a lack of ideas, but because execution broke down under stress. They knew what to do, but couldn’t do it consistently. That gap between intention and execution is where frustration sets in.

That’s why we focus on tools that support consistency over time. Sustainable participation means supporting different stages of a trader’s journey, from stepping away from manual trading to systematizing execution at scale. Strategy trading, at its core, is about adding structure where humans struggle most, and giving users frameworks they can grow into

BeInCrypto: Crypto trading still places a lot of weight on prediction and timing. Where do traders misunderstand the difference between predicting the market and executing a strategy, and how does that misunderstanding play out over time?

Federico Variola: Most traders mistake having a view for having a strategy. If they can call the next move, they assume the rest will take care of itself. In practice, it rarely does.

The issue surfaces when the market moves against them. Stops are adjusted, positions are added impulsively, or the original plan is dropped altogether. The problem is mostly the absence of structure.

A strategy defines what happens after a view is taken. With bot-based strategies, that structure is embedded. A grid bot doesn’t predict direction; it follows predefined rules as price moves. DCA or Martingale bots apply similar logic to entries and position building. In these cases, the strategy isn’t an opinion, it’s the system being run.

Traders who rely on prediction often experience emotional whiplash. Strategy-based execution makes results easier to evaluate, you can judge the system, rather than question whether emotion got in the way.

That’s why exchanges offering bots matter from a user-first perspective. They don’t replace thinking, but they do help traders stick to a plan when markets move fast.

BeInCrypto: When you look at how traders evolve over time, where do structured tools like bots actually help, and where do they fail to replace judgment?

Bots help most with consistency, especially early in a trader’s lifecycle. Many newer traders struggle with execution. Copy trading is often their first step into strategy, letting them participate without making every decision and see what disciplined execution looks like.

As traders gain experience, tools like grid bots become more relevant. A grid strategy doesn’t predict direction; it works a defined range and systematically buys and sells as price moves, a valuable strategy in a ranging market. On Phemex, traders use grid bots on both spot and futures to avoid reacting to every tick and instead rely on rules that run continuously.

Strategies like DCA or Martingale bots bring structure to more advanced position building. Across all of these, the benefit is the same: execution stays stable even when markets aren’t.

Education and ease of setup are critical. We’ve intentionally put ourselves in the shoes of traders at different levels and built guides and articles that explain how these strategies work. We’ve also focused on making setup easier: things like one-click bot creation and AI parameters help lower the barrier without taking control away from the user. 

BeInCrypto: You’ve positioned bots as a first station for strategy trading rather than an advanced tool. What assumptions about trader behavior does that challenge?

Federico Variola: “It challenges the idea that traders need to suffer through chaos before they’re ‘ready’ for structure. There’s a belief that you have to trade manually for a long time, make mistakes, build intuition, and only then move to more systematic tools. What we’ve seen is that this often does more harm than good.

Early on, traders are dealing with the hardest parts of the market all at once, including volatility, uncertainty, and their own emotional reactions. Without any structure, they tend to overtrade, react to noise, or change direction too quickly. Those habits form early, and they’re hard to undo later.

Treating bots as a starting point flips that around. It lets people experience what disciplined execution looks like from the beginning. Whether that’s following a copied strategy, running a simple grid, or using a basic DCA setup, the key is that execution follows rules instead of impulse. 

At Phemex, we’ve tried to design strategy tools with that in mind. Some users will start with copy trading to understand how a strategy behaves. Others will jump straight into setting up a bot with predefined parameters. More experienced traders will customize and layer on complexity. The important part is that structure comes early, and complexity comes as users grow into it.

When you do it that way, people don’t feel like strategy trading is something reserved for experts. It becomes a natural part of how they learn. And over time, that tends to produce traders who are calmer and more consistent.

BeInCrypto: Phemex’s Trading Bot Carnival centers on using trading bots as a practical entry point into strategy trading. What trader behaviors or pain points were you trying to correct when you decided to launch this campaign?

Federico Variola: “From the user side, that usually leads to fatigue rather than improvement. People trade more frequently, but without a clear sense of why. They put in time and attention, but don’t necessarily feel more confident or consistent as a result.  Over time, that creates frustration. At Phemex, we see this across very different users. Some are newer and feel overwhelmed by futures markets. Others are experienced but find themselves over-engaged, constantly tweaking positions without a clear framework. 

And as an exchange that defines itself as user-first, we feel the responsibility to equip traders with the tools they need to operate more deliberately. 

Strategy-driven trading gives both groups a way to slow things down, define their rules, and step out of constant decision-making.

It’s really not about telling people what to do. Contrarily, it’s about helping them trade in a way they can actually sustain when the market is pushing them to react all the time.”

BeInCrypto: Futures trading is often associated with high churn. From your perspective, what role does structured execution play in keeping traders engaged across multiple market cycles?

Federico Variola: “Much of the churn in futures comes from trying to react to every move. Markets move fast, and constantly guessing direction leads to over-trading and exhaustion.

Structured execution offers an alternative. Grid trading, for example, replaces constant prediction with a defined range and predefined buy-sell levels, allowing traders to capture smaller moves automatically rather than chase direction. In futures, this can be neutral or tilted long or short, while still following the same rules.

That structure helps traders stay engaged across market cycles, even in choppy conditions. Instead of reacting to every tick, they manage a plan. At Phemex, we see traders participate longer when they have a clear execution framework rather than relying on constant judgment.”

Phemex is currently running a Trading Bot Carnival aimed at encouraging broader adoption of trading bots, with a total reward pool of up to USDT 260,000. New users can receive up to USDT 100 for participating. Full campaign details are available here.