What Is PoloNuke?

Cryptocurrency users often rely on different exchange platforms to buy and sell various currencies. The Poloniex exchange is one of the more popular platforms in this regard, as it has built up somewhat of a reputation over the years. One of its users has created a new tool called PoloNuke. No, this tool is not designed to flood the exchange with bogus website traffic. Rather, it allows users to sell all their altcoin balances in exchange for Bitcoin. It’s quite an intriguing endeavor, although one always needs to be wary of third-party tools.

PoloNuke can be a Powerful Tool

There are plenty of reasons to get one’s money off the Poloniex exchange. The company has suffered from deposit and withdrawal delays and major outages over the past few months. Some of its recent policy changes still do not sit well with a lot of users. Withdrawing funds in Bitcoin is not that big of an issue these days, but when it comes to altcoins, the situation can be very different. Some users have had to wait days, if not weeks, to see their money moved off the platform.

Finding a solution for this problem is not all that easy, though. One option is to manually convert all of one’s altcoin balances to Bitcoin, assuming the exchange does not have to deal with issues at that time. One cryptocurrency user, whose GitHub username is Crypto-AI, has come up with a new tool to make this process a lot easier. If too many people were to use PoloNuke at the same time, however, it could cripple the exchange.

PoloNuke can be an effective tool for those who are looking to liquidate all their altcoin holdings at once. The script connects to the Poloniex exchange and trades all of the current account balances for Bitcoin in one go. The default setting ensures both Ethereum and GameCredits balances remain untouched, although users can manually modify these settings as they see fit. For people left with many small bags of altcoins to cash out, PoloNuke can be a godsend.

This script requires users to generate an API key and its secret associated with Poloniex in order to be used. That makes it no different from most dedicated trading applications, but it is always worth understanding how the application in question works. Trusting third-party software with an API key and its secret – especially when it has permission to access and modify balances – is always a bit of a security risk. Make sure to check out the PoloNuke source code first and foremost before entrusting it with this sensitive information.

PoloNuke has a few limitations at this time. First of all, it cannot cancel stop loss orders, which must be removed by the user manually. There are only so many features supported by the Poloniex API, and this is not one of them, unfortunately. Additionally, PoloNuke may not get rid of all your balances in one go if the orders you trigger cause the market price to fall by 5% or more. That is a nice built-in feature, as everyone still wants the most bang for their buck when it comes to altcoins. Getting rid of illiquid coins can prove to be a difficult venture, though.

All things considered, scripts such as PoloNuke can easily be modified to accommodate other exchanges as well. People who are actively speculating on the altcoin market through exchanges with a proper API can use this source code and build their own versions of the tool. Given how altcoins are often very small markets, getting rid of large amounts of coins can be quite cumbersome. PoloNuke makes the process a lot easier, although it remains an untrusted third-party tool for the time being. Always conduct your due diligence before running such scripts.