High performance and result-driven strategies are a must-have in trading as you need to quickly respond to rapid crypto price fluctuations. We support our trading applications with a CryptoGateway application shell that provides instant access to market data from various exchanges in a uniform manner.
Cryptocurrencies are known to be extremely volatile with market prices shifting like the spring tide across exchanges. This both creates opportunities and, at the same time, challenges traders to snatch that fleeting profitable moment. They must be very committed to their craft, performing deals every hour of the day and perfecting their techniques.
To make the job easier, cryptocurrency traders use a variety of tools to multiply their fortunes. Crypto trading bots, for example, use trade and order book data to make decisions on behalf of their users. Developers are always on the lookout for faster ways of delivering that information from the top exchanges to user applications.
Our team at PixelPlex has a lot of experience developing trading apps, and we know the hardships of dealing with multiple exchange APIs. Working on one of our projects, we’ve come up with a smart and efficient way for the app to communicate with exchanges and swiftly execute trading strategies. We continue to use it on all similar projects and our clients are quite happy with the results it brings.
Read on to find out more about our solution and how a modular approach benefits the performance and flexibility of the trading app.
Problems and challenges with building trading apps
Developing apps that rely on crypto market data is fairly complicated. As mentioned, every exchange provides a unique set of methods for developers called the application program interface (API). The API is basically a set of rules that helps the exchange interact with other software. It gives access to real-time market data which is used to make trades and manage user accounts.
If you’re working with a particular exchange, figuring out the API and using it to feed data to your application might not seem to be a problem. The trouble is that most modern apps, like crypto trading bots, need access to multiple platforms. This means that developers will have to read the docs and write a ton of integration code for every exchange.
There are some open-source API wrappers and aggregators on the market, however, using these comes with its downsides. If a project is to be scaled, with more exchanges to be added, then the application, its features, and strategies need to be rewritten to align with the new data source. On the other hand, if new features are introduced to the application, it also requires a lot of groundwork and a complete overhaul of the logic.
Another issue that comes with integrating with multiple exchanges is speed. Trades need to be made on the fly, before anyone else takes advantage of the profit chance. That’s why most developers prefer to go with WebSocket-powered APIs. It allows them to provide traders with live market prices and order book data.
CryptoGateway: Our Modular API Wrapper
Our crew of Jedi masters in blockchain development thought of an elegant way of extracting data from exchanges and supplied it with an ingenious architecture design.
CryptoGateway has microservice architecture deployed as a set of modules connected to each other with GRPC. There is an adapter component for each exchange that extracts and normalizes data. Each of the trading strategies and all the additional features and functionality is also integrated as a set of separate modules.
Microservices allow us to plug and play features as we go. We can also add support for more exchanges by adding new adapters and it won’t break the application’s logic. The API wrapper aggregates data from all the sources (we use WebSocket where possible) and the application’s modules can access it through a unified interface. The data is also normalized and ready for any manipulations that follow.
This design makes the trading application more lightweight and scalable. It also maximizes the performance since the strategies interact with the adapters directly, all within the application shell. So there’s no overhead in terms of data interactions, including fetching market data and booking orders if such functionality is included.
See how our portfolio management solution uses the CryptoGateway to the fullest
So what can we create with this?
CryptoGateway supports streaming indicative prices for currency pairs from the top exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Bittrex. It enables trading bots to leverage the full package of market data, including trades, OHLCV (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume) candlesticks, crypto exchange rates, and order book data.
Using applications based on the gateway, traders can easily exchange cryptocurrency, get live data from their accounts, manage their portfolio and risks in one place, and successfully implement complex trading strategies, such as arbitrage trading.
Besides trading strategies, the modular architecture allows us to easily integrate modules for market data analysis, database management, indexing, etc. Additional features could even include machine learning to anticipate trends and enable smart trades.
Modular design gives us the flexibility to use the CryptoGateway trading app shell for other projects and equip them with bold features like real-time portfolio tracking, balancing funds across exchanges, executing and perfecting complex trading strategies. It lets us focus on the logic of the strategies and not worry about architecture and plugging into exchange APIs. All the modules have access to live data presented in a uniform format.
We can do the same for your project
By simplifying multiple integrations, our CryptoGateway can accelerate and streamline architecture design and development processes. All that hassle that eats away time and drags out the launch and delivery dates can be avoided. Not to mention, it’s a whole lot of weight off your shoulders in terms of development expenses. Our team of blockchain development engineers is ready to jump on board to help you deliver your trading application.
