0x01: The Titan Manifesto

Most open-source crypto exchanges are toys.

They are written in Python or JavaScript. They rely on databases for matching logic. They stop the world for Garbage Collection. They drift.

If you are building for the High-Frequency Trading (HFT) era, “good enough” is not enough. You need speed, determinism, and safety.

I am building Titan. And I am building it in public.

The Goal: Production Grade

Titan is not a research project. The goal is to ship.

We are building a production-ready cryptocurrency exchange backend that can be deployed to the real world.

• Real Resilience: It must survive crashes, power outages, and network partitions.
• Real Money: Precision is not optional. Safety is not optional.
• Real Scale: Designed to handle the load of a top-tier CEX from day one.

The Architecture: Metal Mode

We are choosing architecture for reliability and throughput.

1. The LMAX Pattern (Lock-Free)

We adopt the Disruptor pattern because it is battle-tested in traditional finance.

• Single-Threaded Business Logic: Simple is reliable. No complex locking bugs.
• Ring Buffer: High-performance, predictable data flow.
• Sequential Execution: Deterministic processing means easier debugging and auditing.

2. Zero GC & Zero Copy

Garbage Collection (GC) introduces unpredictability.

• We use Rust. No runtime GC pauses.
• We will use Arena Allocation. Predictable memory usage is critical for 24/7 stability.

3. Event Sourcing (The Source of Truth)

A production system needs an audit trail.

• Input: Signed messages (Place, Cancel).
• Persistence: Write-Ahead Log (WAL).
• Recovery: Replay the WAL to restore state. This guarantees we never lose user data, even if the server burns down.

The Roadmap

We are building this layer by layer, targeting a live release.

• Phase I: Foundation (We are here)
  • Defining precise financial models (Decimal).
  • Designing the in-memory Orderbook.
• Phase II: The Core
  • Implementing the Matching Engine logic.
  • Risk Management & Balance Checks.
• Phase III: The Pipeline
  • High-performance Ring Buffer implementation.
  • Separating Gateway (IO) from Engine (Logic).
• Phase IV: Resilience
  • High-speed WAL persistence.
  • Crash Recovery & Snapshots.
• Phase V: Production
  • API Gateways (WebSocket/REST).
  • Monitoring, Metrics, and Tracing.
• Phase VI: The Bridge (Hybrid)
  • On-Chain Verification: We are exploring zk-STARKs or Merkle proofs to periodically commit state roots to the blockchain.
  • Proof of Solvency: Cryptographic proof that user assets are backed 1:1, without revealing individual balances.
  • The goal: CEX Speed, DEX Trust.

Why Rust?

We chose Rust for stability. In a production financial system, “Undefined Behavior” is unacceptable. Rust’s strict memory safety and type system eliminate entire classes of bugs at compile time. It lets us sleep at night knowing the engine won’t segfault under load.

Join the Journey

I will be documenting the entire process of building a production-grade exchange from scratch.

If you are interested in System Architecture, Financial Engineering, or seeing how a real trading system is born, stay tuned.

Next: Designing the core data structures for precision.