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Algo trading digital assets

johnmathews.eu

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Re: Algo trading digital assets

#4
This is a decent first-steps guide into analyzing historical trading data. With resources like Quandl, QuantConnect, etc continuing to improve, hopefully we will see more and more people diving into the data.

That being said, the "todos" at the end of this article kind of understate just how much work is left to be done before a strategy like this could be put into production. Ignoring the actual viability of a simple moving average cross signal, you could have the best strategy out there but would never stand a chance without significant time and effort committed to the execution and risk management sides of automated trading.

If building trading systems in the crypto world is something that interests you feel free to reach out to me, company / contact info is in my HN profile.

Re: Algo trading digital assets

#7
post #4

This is a decent first-steps guide into analyzing historical trading data. With resources like Quandl, QuantConnect, etc continuing to improve, hopefully we will see more and more people diving into the data. That being said, the "todos" at the end of this article kind of understate just how much work is left to be done before a strategy like this could be put into production. Ignoring the actual viability of a simpl…

Here's a question I've had for a while regarding trading systems in the cryptocurrency world --

What's the end goal? Would a perfect trading system fully automate the trading process to maximize returns, or is the goal to develop the best tool to assist a trader?

I'm curious what you, as someone in the field of developing these systems, see as the "ideal product".

As a follow up question, what would happen to a market that is 100% traded automatically (assuming thats possible and the end-goal) - would become stagnant?

Forgive my ignorance if any of this is obvious, my econ/trading knowledge is next to 0.

Re: Algo trading digital assets

#9
Although simulations will predict good profits, you will probably lose your money doing this due to counterparty risk. Counterparty risk is the risk that, between the time you click the 'sell' button and the time you actually get the money deposited in your bank account a few days later, the exchange goes insolvent.

When a given coin trades at different prices on two exchanges (which is what these arbitrage algorithms look for), it will try to buy that currency on the cheap one and sell on the expensive one.

The main reason coins have different prices (more than a few cents) on different exchanges is that people are worried about the exchange being insolvent.

For instance, during MtGox's slide into doom, Bitcoin was cheap there. So this algorithm would have been busily buying Bitcoin with USD on MtGox, then transferring the Bitcoin to another exchange to sell, so it could pump the USD back into MtGox. Since withdrawals from MtGox were throttled, you would have built up a large balance there. When they shut down, you would have lost bigly.

People do make money doing arbitrage between exchanges, but you need a sophisticated model that considers counterparty risk, which isn't something you can read from a price sheet.

Re: Algo trading digital assets

#10
post #4

This is a decent first-steps guide into analyzing historical trading data. With resources like Quandl, QuantConnect, etc continuing to improve, hopefully we will see more and more people diving into the data. That being said, the "todos" at the end of this article kind of understate just how much work is left to be done before a strategy like this could be put into production. Ignoring the actual viability of a simpl…

Here's a question I've had for a while regarding trading systems in the cryptocurrency world -- What's the end goal? Would a perfect trading system fully automate the trading process to maximize returns, or is the goal to develop the best tool to assist a trader? I'm curious what you, as someone in the field of developing these systems, see as the "ideal product". As a follow up question, what would happen to a marke…

Just like in traditional markets there are all kinds of applications. Some devs might be building tools to assist human traders, some might be working on market making / liquidity providing, some might be working on execution algos for the various funds that have popped up. My ideal product is very different from someone else's, it just depends on what your business model is.

For the follow up question, I would suggest looking at the rise of automated trading in traditional markets. It is an overwhelmingly large % of trades and market activity these days, and I would call the largest financial markets in the world anything but stagnant.

The more players and liquidity in a market, the more efficient the price discovery can be, which I think would be a very good thing for the long term viability of crypto markets.

I guess to summarize, the crypto markets are not much different from traditional markets and getting more similar every day.

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