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Scan and multi-market strategies

How scan strategies work, market universe selection, and concurrent position limits.

Updated 2026-05-29·2 min read

A scan strategy monitors a universe of up to 50 crypto or 200 stock markets simultaneously and opens positions on any that meet your entry conditions. Use max_open_positions to cap how many concurrent positions it holds at once.

What is a scan strategy?

A scan strategy monitors a universe of markets simultaneously and opens positions on whichever symbols meet the entry conditions. Each symbol runs independently — the strategy evaluates against every symbol in the universe on each candle.

How do you select the universe?

Describe the universe in your strategy prompt:

  • scan top 50 coins by 24h volume on Binance
  • scan all crypto pairs on Hyperliquid
  • scan BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX

The engine resolves the universe by sorting active markets by their volume_rank (maintained by a background job). For stocks, the default universe is up to 200 instruments.

Default maximum: 50 crypto markets / 200 stock markets per strategy, controlled by the SCAN_DEFAULT_MAX_MARKETS / SCAN_STOCK_DEFAULT_MAX_MARKETS environment variables. There are no per-plan scan-universe limits — the cap is the same for all plans.

How do you limit concurrent positions?

Use max_open_positions to cap how many concurrent positions the scan strategy can hold at once. This prevents the strategy from using too much capital if many symbols trigger simultaneously.

Example: max_open_positions: 5 — the strategy will hold at most 5 open positions across all symbols. New entry signals are skipped while the limit is reached.

max_open_positions: 0 immediately blocks all new entries. Use null (or leave unset) to remove the limit.

What is the credit cost?

Each unique (symbol, interval) pair that a scan watches costs 0.5 credits/day in data subscription. A 50-pair scan on 1h candles costs ~25 credits/day. See Credit drivers and costs.

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