[GreaterFool]

I also hear arb is doing fine.

I wonder how it works though. Most exchange APIs are terrible and it is simply not technically feasible to do anything using those APIs.

Also prices at too many exchanges move in absolute lockstep.

Must be private, privileged access to better (internal) APIs, profit sharing, rip the face of "retail" investor kind of deals.

After all the "exchanges" are not really exchanges as we know them in other markets. They're more like forex trading.

I think the crypto market would benefit from a (semi-)regulated impartial exchange where other firms can become members and act as brokers to direct retail flow.

But unless there's some sort of regulation about it it would just be a private business that could kick out any member for any reason. To much risk for the members.

[module0000]

Forget the 3rd party exchanges with their homegrown APIs. If you are dealing with size(1k+), you go straight to the CME and trade crypto futures contracts. Dealing with the CME also adds the regulation necessary(ie CFTC) for your investors.

[polkapolka]

You bypass the API completely and fill orders "manually".

[bhaak]

What do you mean by "manually"?

The general web page of an exchange is horrible slow compared to their APIs and often breaks during high volume periods.

[polkapolka]

Did you run into latency problems doing arbitrage this way? Or do you rely on API's?

[bhaak]

I didn't do arbitrage but running bots for statistical data via API. I think latency is not even the big problem, although of course you have to account for it when doing arbitrage. The latency can be quite high even during calm periods (also don't forget that exchanges can be on different sides of the globe, that already adds quite a bit of latency).

During times of high volumes as in the period of the last rally, the websites of many crypto exchanges break easily and even the API are not that stable.

You can also see that on reddit. Every time the price spiked, you got people complaining about exchanges breaking. There's still a long way to go for crypto exchanges.