Author

Topic: HFT trader's journal entry >:( (Read 457 times)

sr. member
Activity: 410
Merit: 257
July 02, 2015, 05:50:15 PM
#2
Thanks a lot for your insights! Working on java stuff, too. So this might help me in some way or another.
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 0
July 02, 2015, 06:36:20 AM
#1
Well about two months ago i have started my journey with bitcoin HFT trading...
I have come up with (what i thought to be) an awesome trading strategy which (in theory) would make me a millioner in a couple of weeks, and decided to dive in and develop my own trading bot to make my dream a reality.

i'd like to share some of my insights/frustrations so far - hoping it might help one of you in the future:

xchange java library -
while being the most active github project dealing with market data and trading tools for the bitcoin market, i would rule it is not a good enough tool for automatic trading projects.
yes, there is support for almost every bitcoin exchange api out there, but:
- lack of support for FIX api's (on most exchanges)
- almost no error handling features (you must deal with it yourslef)
- (in my opinion) connection losts are not handled properly
- poorly documented

btcchina -
CONS:
horrible websocket and FIX servers.
- data latency is intolerable
- getting a socket connection to last more than 30 minutes without having to restart it is almost impossible
the result is lack of data consistency and having about 50% of the time - outdated data.
PROS:
- the api supports a "quantity oriented" market buy orders (meaning you can send an order to buy X BTC at marketprice without having to calculate market price yourself).
- no trading fees
- supports BTC/LTC, BTC/CNY, LTC/CNY
- well documented API's including github project with code examples

okcoin.cn-
CONS:
- unlike btcchina, market buy orders are "ammount oriented" meaning you have to specify the CNY ammount of the buy order - and if your market data is not updated it would result in buying more/less BTC than you intended
- does not support BTC/LTC trades
PROS:
- excellent service on socket, FIX and REST servers. data streaming is superb and orders can be executed in a near-realtime latency.
- sockets connections can last forever.
- no trading fees
- well documented API's including github project with code examples

huobi-
CONS:
- "ammount oriented" market buy orders
- the api is poorly documented, it took me ages to understand what's going on under the hood, and so far i haven't managed to get a reliable market-depth data with the web socket service. the FIX api is even more difficult to understand and use - there is one jave project on github (by SUTRA)  for huobi but i wasn't able to succesfuly execute trades or get a reliable market-depth data.
- does not support BTC/LTC trades

PROS:
- no trading fees

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