Coinbase Engineer Simulates Fly Brain to Trade Cryptocurrencies
An engineer at Coinbase has developed an open-source project called Stonkfly that simulates the brain of a male fruit fly (Drosophila) to trade cryptocurrencies. The project, which can be run on macOS or Linux computers with at least 16GB of RAM, uses real BTC/USDC market data and allows users to watch live auctions.
The virtual fly's brain consists of 166,700 neurons and 25.6 million connections, and it sees the chart through its left and right eyes at a resolution of 320×180 pixels. The fly can buy, sell, or hold a selected currency, and receives a virtual 'reward' for profitable transactions.
The engineer notes that the simulation lacks mechanisms for pain or emotion, but the fly demonstrates a more measured approach than many human traders - it cannot use leverage or trade short. By default, the simulation makes a decision every 500 milliseconds, and market data is updated every 60 seconds.