CEX.IO making changes to trading engine to improve order processing

In order to help system load, bitcoin exchange CEX.io announced new updates to its trading engine which will take place on January 23rd. On this day, the company will be changing minimal order volume and price precision on most of the markets listed on the exchange.

The changes are designed to make order processing more efficient to improve the quality of the service. The changes are aimed at reducing high-frequency, low volume order trades at or near the current market price. This kind of activity impacts the performance of the company trade engine considerably while bringing very little liquidity to markets.

The development team said, “care should be taken by those who use bots or API for trading activities. Please adjust the algorithms using below information for the orders to be processed without flaws.”

The extent of the updates will include:

1. Reducing the number of decimal places for a specific trading pair

Price precision will be reduced on most CEX.IO markets. Price precision is the number of decimal places allowed in the price of a placed order. Reducing this number of decimals will considerably improve the performance of the trading engine by eliminating microscopic price fluctuations and thus, the number of calculations the trade engine has to do every second. As a result, the trade interface is intended to be more responsive, and users will be able to place orders faster. For example, users were able to place orders with the precision of up to 0.01 USD on BTC/USD market. Now precisions up to only 0.1 USD will be supported.

CEX.io took a page out of Kraken Bitcoin Exchange’s fix here, as Kraken implemented a reduction of decimals change last summer to help improve exchange efficiency.

2. Сhanging minimum values for placing orders.

Because of the growth in the price of most coins lately, it became increasingly difficult for traders with certain trade strategies to effectively enter our market, as minimum order values were too high. CEX.io will change and standardize minimal order volume for users to be able to trade more efficiently. The minimal order will be equal to around 20 USD for the pairs that include fiat. For the cryptocurrency pairs, the estimation equates to approximately 0.001 BTC. Please note, that these values are approximate and are represented in quote currency (e.g users will be able to buy approximately $20 worth of bitcoin when changes take effect). This is done in order to find a common denominator that can be easily understood by all users. On trade engine itself, orders are placed in base currency.