The wheels factory: how to normalize digital assets symbology

As a FIX Trading Community member, XTRD takes part in conferences and calls to define worldwide standards in trading and market data for multiple assets classes, including cryptocurrency.

The last Digital Currencies/Blockchain working group meeting was much more filled with details and debates in comparison with the previous one.

Basically, people discussed the same topic I covered in my previous post — naming conventions for symbols and ways to integrate crypto assets into existing OMS/EMS systems.

Right now everyone can name his own asset in a very unique way — from one to almost unlimited characters long names, non-alphabet characters, no restrictions for unique names even within single network e.g. there many duplicated tokens on the Ethereum chain and I’m 100% sure that names will intersect with other networks.

Exchanges maintain their own symbols directories, but as long as they are not talking to each other, the wheel is being re-invented every time a new exchange comes to play. Solution providers (we are not an exception) are also doing the same — proprietary rules, own names, own IDs. One more wheel hits the road.

Speaking of the XTRD “wheel” — our approach is more compatible with FIX specs and widely adopted naming convention for FX pairs. We are managing symbol descriptions (including names, contract addresses, precisions etc) internally with binds to the particular exchange. Basically, it’s a combination of Symbol(tag 55), SecurityID(tag 48), SecurityIDSource(tag 22), SecurityExchange(tag 207), and several custom fields we added into SecurityList message. This is not an ideal solution but better than nothing.

No matter who is saying what, normalization and standardization is the way people can work together. ICOs are flourishing because the ERC20 convention has been created. When you have more than one person involved, there should be a common agreement/contract/protocol/interface of how they deal with each other. Within countries it usually a constitution and set of civil and criminal laws, in engineering it standards and protocols. I belong to the category of people that believes that software development is more engineering than magic, so standards are required.

Institutional systems are built on top of many standards and protocols, and it’s extremely important to integrate crypto into this eco-system. The good news is that FIX Trading Community (which XTRD is the part of) and especially the Digital Currencies/Blockchain working group is actively working with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to make this happen.

Of course, this is not a one-day business because we are talking about worldwide standards, but there is some significant progress. Bi-weekly meetings, active discussions, a growing community — believe me or not, but eventually, everyone will see positive results.

We are seeing growing interest from the institutions to enter this market. But they need familiar infrastructure and protocols, and I’m really proud that XTRD is working on products that might change the space for the better.