According to some sources, FTX was the second cryptocurrency exchange, comparable by volume with Coinbase. It is sad to see it collapse and to hear about the financial and other consequences for the investors and all involved parties. Hopefully, someone will eventually buy the platform including the expertise, the infrastructure, and the APIs.
Setting aside the fraud and bankruptcy part, it is interesting to look at FTX from an engineering perspective. Based on the documentation, FTX provides a modern API with extensive functionality that includes such advanced features as options trading, spot margin trading, and staking. The APIs are designed concisely and cleanly, and the documentation is straightforward and resides in one place. The platform supports REST API for trading, WebSockets for events and live market data, message-based FIX protocol, and API for the NFT domain. WebSockets and FIX protocol are used to notify clients about various events. For example, after a client places an order, it gets notified when the order is filled by listening to the orders channel WebSocket. I created the below diagram as a high-level view to show all FTX APIs on one page.
#fintech #cryptocurrency #engineering #crypto #ftx #blockchain #softwaredesign
High-level FTX API structure