High-frequency trading systems built for the microsecond path.
BitAzure engineers the infrastructure between market data and order entry: feed handlers, a strategy engine on a lock-free hot path, pre-trade risk that cannot be skipped, venue gateways and the replay and backtesting tools that make strategies testable before they trade.
- Lock-free, pre-allocated hot paths with binary protocols
- Feed handlers and normalised market data
- Pre-trade risk checks and kill switches
- Deterministic replay, backtesting and simulation
What is an HFT trading platform?
A high-frequency trading (HFT) platform is a trading system engineered so that the path from market data arrival to order submission is as short and predictable as possible, typically measured in microseconds. It combines feed handlers, a strategy engine, pre-trade risk checks and order gateways, all designed around single-threaded hot paths, lock-free data structures and pre-allocated memory.
BitAzure builds HFT infrastructure for proprietary trading firms, market makers and quantitative funds active on crypto venues. The work covers exchange connectivity, market-data normalisation, strategy hosting, risk controls, deterministic replay and the backtesting environment that lets strategies be validated against recorded data before they touch capital.
Latency is treated as an engineering budget. Each component is allocated a share of the tick-to-trade target, measured with hardware timestamps and optimised with the kernel-bypass, colocation or FPGA options that the budget justifies.
HFT infrastructure services
We build the platform that hosts strategies. Alpha research stays with your quantitative team, working in the tooling we deliver.
Low-Latency Core
- Single-threaded hot paths pinned to isolated cores
- Lock-free SPSC and MPSC queues between stages
- Pre-allocated memory pools with no allocation on the hot path
- Binary wire protocols and zero-copy parsing
- Busy-polling and cache-aware data layouts
Market Data
- Feed handlers for native exchange WebSocket and binary feeds
- Normalisation into a common book and trade model
- Sequence-gap detection and snapshot recovery
- Hardware timestamping at the NIC where available
- Full-depth recording for research and replay
Strategy Engine
- In-process strategy hosting with a fixed event loop
- Strategy parameters hot-reloaded without restart
- Signal, quoting and hedging modules
- Position and PnL tracking in the hot path
- Simulation mode that runs identical code paths
Risk & Order Gateways
- Pre-trade checks: notional, position, rate and price bands
- Order gateways per venue with session management
- Cancel-on-disconnect and heartbeat supervision
- Throttling to venue rate limits
- Kill switches at strategy, venue and firm level
Replay, Backtesting & Simulation
- Deterministic replay of recorded inputs to reproduce any session
- Event-driven backtester over recorded market data
- Latency and fill models calibrated from live captures
- Parameter sweeps and walk-forward testing
- Regression suites comparing live and simulated behaviour
Deployment & Monitoring
- Colocation and cross-connect deployment as an option
- Kernel-bypass networking (DPDK, Onload) as an option
- FPGA feed handling evaluated where the latency budget justifies it
- Latency histograms per stage with percentile alerting
- Operator console with real-time positions and controls
Reference HFT platform architecture
Exchange feeds are normalised by feed handlers and delivered to the strategy engine over lock-free queues. Orders pass through pre-trade risk to venue gateways. A parallel research lane records every input for deterministic replay and backtesting, and monitoring measures each stage of the path.
Hover or focus a component to see its role in the architecture.
- Exchange Feeds (WebSocket · binary): Native market data feeds from each venue, timestamped on arrival.
- Feed Handlers (Normalisation · gap recovery): Per-venue parsers producing a common book and trade model with sequence checks.
- Market Data Recorder (Full depth · timestamps): Captures every inbound message for replay, research and compliance.
- Replay Engine (Deterministic): Re-injects recorded sessions into the same engine to reproduce decisions exactly.
- Strategy Engine (Lock-free hot path): Hosts strategies on a pinned core with pre-allocated memory and a fixed event loop.
- Pre-trade Risk (Limits · kill switch): Notional, position, rate and price-band checks on every order before egress.
- Backtester (Recorded data · fill models): Event-driven simulation with latency and fill models calibrated from live captures.
- Order Gateways (Per venue · sessions): Venue-specific order entry with throttling, heartbeats and cancel-on-disconnect.
- Exchange Order Entry (REST · FIX · binary): Venue order APIs returning acknowledgements and fills.
- Monitoring (Latency histograms · alerts): Per-stage latency percentiles, positions and operator controls.
Ingress
- Feed handlers
- Normalisation
- Hardware timestamps
Decision
- Strategy engine
- Position & PnL
- Parameter control
Egress
- Pre-trade risk
- Order gateways
- Kill switches
Research & ops
- Recording & replay
- Backtesting
- Latency monitoring
Where HFT infrastructure is applied
Market making on crypto venues
Quoting engines with inventory-aware pricing and fast cancel-replace across many instruments.
Cross-venue arbitrage
Detecting and acting on price differences with venue-specific gateways and hedging logic.
Latency-sensitive execution
Order slicing and smart routing for funds that need predictable fills.
Quant research platforms
Recorded full-depth data, backtesting and simulation shared between research and production.
Risk and surveillance overlays
Firm-wide pre-trade limits and kill switches in front of multiple strategy teams.
Exchange-side infrastructure
Low-latency market data distribution and order entry for venues serving HFT clients.
Why trading firms work with BitAzure
Latency as a budget
Each stage has an allocation measured with hardware timestamps, so regressions are caught in CI.
One code path
Live, replay and backtest run the same strategy code, so simulations are meaningful.
Risk that cannot be skipped
Pre-trade checks sit in the order path with kill switches reachable by operators.
Venue expertise
Feed and gateway quirks are handled in adapters rather than leaking into strategies.
Reproducible incidents
Deterministic replay reproduces any session for post-mortems.
Infrastructure options
Cloud, colocation, kernel-bypass and FPGA are evaluated against the actual latency target.
Technologies we use for HFT systems
C++
BackendUltra-low-latency components in matching and market-data paths.
Rust
BackendMemory-safe, low-latency engines, on-chain programs and tooling.
Go
BackendConcurrent network services, relayers and infrastructure daemons.
Python
BackendData pipelines, quant research tooling and AI services.
Kafka
DatabaseDurable event streaming between engines and services.
ClickHouse
DatabaseColumnar analytics for trade history and market data.
Redis
DatabaseCaching, sessions, rate limiting, pub/sub and order-book snapshots.
PostgreSQL
DatabaseTransactional ledgers, ledgers-of-record and analytical workloads.
Linux
Docker
InfrastructureReproducible builds and images across every environment.
Prometheus / Grafana
InfrastructureMetrics, dashboards and alerting for every service.
Terraform
InfrastructureInfrastructure as code with reviewable change plans.
How we deliver HFT infrastructure
Every engagement follows a documented, milestone-driven path from discovery to continuous development.
- 01
Latency budget and venue scope
Target venues, instruments and the tick-to-trade budget are agreed with the trading team.
- 02
Architecture and hardware plan
Threading model, memory layout, network path and hosting options are specified with measurement points.
- 03
Feed and gateway development
Venue adapters are built and certified against recorded data and sandbox environments.
- 04
Strategy hosting and risk
Engine, risk checks and operator controls are built together with replay and backtest harnesses.
- 05
Measurement and optimisation
Per-stage latency is profiled under replayed load and optimised against the budget.
- 06
Controlled go-live
Shadow mode, small-size live trading and staged scale-up with monitoring at each step.
Risk and security controls in HFT systems
Pre-trade limits
Notional, position, order-rate and price-band checks enforced on every order in the hot path.
Kill switches
Strategy, venue and firm-level halts with cancel-all, reachable from the operator console and automation.
Credential isolation
Venue API keys held in a secrets manager and loaded only by gateway processes.
Network hardening
Dedicated links, allow-listed endpoints and no inbound access to trading hosts.
Change control
Strategy and parameter changes are versioned, reviewed and traceable to a deployer.
Audit and replay
Every input and output is recorded so behaviour can be reconstructed for regulators or internal review.
We coordinate independent third-party audits on request and never claim an audit, certification or compliance status unless it has actually been obtained.
What to decide before building an HFT stack
How low is low enough
The right latency target depends on strategy edge; a cloud deployment may be sufficient for many crypto strategies.
Colocation and kernel bypass
Both cut latency materially but add cost, operational specialism and vendor dependence.
FPGA
Hardware feed handling or risk checks help at the extreme end but require rare skills and long iteration cycles.
Venue behaviour
Rate limits, outages and inconsistent feeds are common on crypto venues and must be modelled in risk and simulation.
Research-production gap
If backtests use different code or data than production, results will not transfer.
Team operating model
Decide who owns parameters, deployments and the kill switch before the first live order.
HFT Trading Platform questions
It depends on venue, hosting and how much of the stack is optimised. We agree a target during design, for example a single-digit-microsecond internal path as an example architecture benchmark, and report measured results. No figure is guaranteed.
Building or upgrading an HFT stack?
Tell us about your venues, strategies and latency goals. We will propose an architecture with a measurable budget.