Using Deltix for Trading Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin Futures

Bitcoin: New Asset Class or Latest Bubble?

The surge in both the price and corresponding interest in trading cryptocurrencies including bitcoin has been one of the main stories in the financial markets during 2017. Historians may point to the launch of bitcoin futures by the CME and CBOE exchanges as the turning point in the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as “institutional” with the ability for trading firms, in addition to trading “spot crypto”, to gain exposure (long and short) to cryptocurrencies (specifically bitcoin) within the safety of regulated futures exchanges.

Far be it for us to predict whether cryptocurrencies are a new asset class or bubble, but the native architecture of the Deltix Product Suite has made it straightforward for us to provide research and trading capabilities for cryptocurrencies.

This means that Deltix clients can now bring best-in-class institutional quantitative analysis and trading (manual and automated) capabilities to cryptocurrencies and their new derivatives (futures).

Crypto Connectivity

Deltix has built data and trading adapters for several bitcoin venues, such as GDAX, Bitfinex and Gemini. This is an ongoing process with new venues being added weekly. Because these venues are so new, many do not have the technology sophistication that institutional traders enjoy at traditional stock and futures exchanges and forex venues.

Deltix aggregates raw order book data from these cryptocurrency venues and has “normalized” connectivity to these venues. As such, users interact directly with the Deltix software (whether for manual or automated trading) rather than navigate the still-evolving technology of crypto trading venues.

In addition to streaming real-time data from each connected venue, crypto tick data is also stored in TimeBase thereby creating an archive of historical data for subsequent analysis. By providing this capability for multiple venues simultaneously, differences in quotes between venues can be analyzed to better understand market structure and enable institutional grade alpha generation and execution management.

Trading Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin Futures

For trading, the full capabilities of Deltix StrategyServer and ExecutionServer are available: including trading risk checks, position keeping, profit and loss tracking and resilient connectivity.

Consistent with Deltix capabilities with other asset classes, users can trade manually via our TradingConsole or deploy automated trading strategies developed and back-tested in QuantOffice. The Deltix automated trading platform provides latency measures in micro-seconds. Users wishing to bring their own analytics to bear can take advantage of Deltix’ extensive APIs for C#, C++, Java and Python.

For more information on how you can use the Deltix platform for trading cryptocurrencies and bitcoin futures, please contact us.