Round trip time to Crypto Exchanges

[cachalote]

Hi,

I realize there are delays happening in crypto exchanges buy/sell operations that are strongly affecting my performance. I am not sure what portion of the delay is caused by the exchange accountability reconciliation ( closing of the operation and reestablishing zero payments due to all sides involved) and what portion of the delay is due to the internet round trip from me to the crypto exchange server. But I reckon I am losing more than I should be when in a non-profitable short-term operation and making less than I should be when in profit, so something s definitely happening.

In other words, I need to find out if the information I see on my screen is actually the price point that the markets actually are at any certain point, since that completely affects the operation results. I am suspicious I may have at least some 1 or 2 seconds unwanted delay, and I need to find out (1) how to isolate the problem and (2) what alternatives do I have to address the problem, besides moving physically to China, or wherever the exchange servers are located.

I was expecting to find some support from the crypto exchanges in regards to the subject ( a roundtrip self evaluation test tool) but that does happen to exist at all. I imagine there must be a commercially available VPN server network dedicated to improve these figures somehow, so you can buy premium access across the internet towards specific DNS domains, with the target to improve roundtrip performance and improve online trading performance. I was not able to find answers online to these specific concerns.

All inputs are appreciated, Many Thanks indeed !

[jackg]

What country are you in and what is your internet speed? (speedtest.net is quite good at measuring internet speeds).
If you mean by your round trip that you are transferring altcoins, these may be the cause of the delay. Exchanges might be after large numbers of confirmations on new coins. Also, for example, bitcoin transactions mean you incurr around 10 minutes of delay due to a new block only being found every 10 minutes.

PS: if you're used to using the console, you can try pinging their servers but that might be unreliable as for DoS protection these sites have).

[cachalote]

Hi

I am in Brazil, South America. My internet speed is 60 Mbps via HFC cable network, anything higher than this is useless ( here)  as there are other bottlenecks up the network.
By "Exchanges" I mean buying/selling bitcoin online and not mining server pools working on blockchain confirmations. I am used to the console and the (speedtest.net) but, as you mentioned, there are other variables affecting the measurement, when done using the "common" ways to evaluate the roundtrip time, like DoS attack protection , and increasingly, I don't know what is considered "normal" or "acceptable" roundtrip times for working with buy/sell in exchanges. That's why I expected some service to show me where do I stand in regards to the "standard", maybe even from the Exchange itself would be the optimal case scenario. Thanks .

[jackg]

Hi

I am in Brazil, South America. My internet speed is 60 Mbps via HFC cable network, anything higher than this is useless ( here)  as there are other bottlenecks up the network.
By "Exchanges" I mean buying/selling bitcoin online and not mining server pools working on blockchain confirmations. I am used to the console and the (speedtest.net) but, as you mentioned, there are other variables affecting the measurement, when done using the "common" ways to evaluate the roundtrip time, like DoS attack protection , and increasingly, I don't know what is considered "normal" or "acceptable" roundtrip times for working with buy/sell in exchanges. That's why I expected some service to show me where do I stand in regards to the "standard", maybe even from the Exchange itself would be the optimal case scenario. Thanks .

Since my post I had a thought. Since most of these exchange site (especially American ones) use cloudflare, it is your connection to that service that is the issue.

However, if you mean there is a delay in buying your coins, maybe it has to go through your bank and gets stuck there (try using a debit card if you haven't already). Although, even after s debit card is used transactions can take up to 7 days (though most sites trust you'll pay them as they have your identity if not).

If you're merely talking about transferring coins from one exchange to another then this is another reason as to the delay as they still have to wait for the transaction to be confirmed by a miner.

[cachalote]

Hi ,

The Bitfinex Exchange service I am referring to , works like you deposit to the, at an account, just as if you deposit bitcoin to someone's else wallet, so there is no delay in acknowledging a bitcoin amount or anything related to banking process,but a delay in buying bitcoin and sellling dolar or vice versa ... up and down of a stock, like Forex ...

but yet, you brought up a nice point ... I just remembered Bitfinex and Bitmex, both use tradingview.com platform for indices and indicators , somehow the service is outsourced by tradingview to bitfinex, and bitfinex builds their clients operations on top of tradingview resources, so the  crux of the matter is owned by tradingview, at least in terms of response time, I guess .. will check in that direction ! thanks for the idea !

[cachalote]

BTW, you were right ! Bitfinex also uses Cloudflare ! I did some search and apparently this is the peering table for the recently activated CloudFlare POP in Rio de Janeiro.

CloudFlare
https://www.peeringdb.com/net/4224
Looking above, the service provider peer available for corporate solutions ( not my case but anyway) is Equinix.

Equinix has peering with local carrier & internet service provider Telemar /Oi , but not with Claro ( my cable internet provider)
https://www.peeringdb.com/fac/1586

So a quick conclusion is that I'd be better off connected to a Telemar/Oi access point and not a Claro access point. While Claro does peer with Telemar, being a Claro customer, I am clearly one hop further from the Cloudflare gateway locally. Not sure if that would make a big latency difference , but it was worth the conclusion.

Thanks again.

[jackg]

BTW, you were right ! Bitfinex also uses Cloudflare ! I did some search and apparently this is the peering table for the recently activated CloudFlare POP in Rio de Janeiro.

CloudFlare
https://www.peeringdb.com/net/4224
Looking above, the service provider peer available for corporate solutions ( not my case but anyway) is Equinix.

Equinix has peering with local carrier & internet service provider Telemar /Oi , but not with Claro ( my cable internet provider)
https://www.peeringdb.com/fac/1586

So a quick conclusion is that I'd be better off connected to a Telemar/Oi access point and not a Claro access point. While Claro does peer with Telemar, being a Claro customer, I am clearly one hop further from the Cloudflare gateway locally. Not sure if that would make a big latency difference , but it was worth the conclusion.

Thanks again.

Don't you have the same cabling company throughout your country? I thought every country just had one company. Mine have a company that provides the Internet and multiple companies that can connect you and offer service.

[cachalote]

Not really, there are different internet backbones across different companies or conglomerates here . Claro is owned by Telmex and bought several companies when it arrived in the country . It bought Embratel and its backbone, a long distance operator and the first internet backbone in Brazil across the whole territory. Claro also bought NET , a HFC video service, but then a CMTS network was overlaid onto the HFC cable infrastructure, creating an internet access network to the end residential customer, something Embratel didn't have as a long-distance operator only.  For instance, the IP phone service in my house is provided by Enbratel but the Gateway machine is physically ocated at Embratel headquarters. In addition there were backbones from other local government-owned telcos, now private businesses, like Telefonica in the state of São Paulo and Telemar at other 24 states. Then the international Optical cables arrived like Global Crossing ( now Layer3) , TIWS ( also Telefonica international) , 360 Networks etc. In the sequence the local backbones connected to the Optical cable companies international networks, so this is a 100 head hydra that never stops growing and interconnecting. This is a view of the last 15 years in Brasil ..I have some knowledge of the scenario, but very few interconnection engineers n these companies really know what peers to what and in which node and for what traffic etc etc ...

[jackg]

Not really, there are different internet backbones across different companies or conglomerates here . Claro is owned by Telmex and bought several companies when it arrived in the country . It bought Embratel and its backbone, a long distance operator and the first internet backbone in Brazil across the whole territory. Claro also bought NET , a HFC video service, but then a CMTS network was overlaid onto the HFC cable infrastructure, creating an internet access network to the end residential customer, something Embratel didn't have as a long-distance operator only.  For instance, the IP phone service in my house is provided by Enbratel but the Gateway machine is physically ocated at Embratel headquarters. In addition there were backbones from other local government-owned telcos, now private businesses, like Telefonica in the state of São Paulo and Telemar at other 24 states. Then the international Optical cables arrived like Global Crossing ( now Layer3) , TIWS ( also Telefonica international) , 360 Networks etc. In the sequence the local backbones connected to the Optical cable companies international networks, so this is a 100 head hydra that never stops growing and interconnecting. This is a view of the last 15 years in Brasil ..I have some knowledge of the scenario, but very few interconnection engineers n these companies really know what peers to what and in which node and for what traffic etc etc ...

Ah, that sounds like quite a confusing system - i assume the confusion betwene tem has arisedfrom the multiple different companies tyring to connect everything as quickly as possible and giving everythiing enough internet. Aren't telefonica based in Spain as well? From where I'm from, there's one company that deals with connecting everyone to the internet (Openreach) which then allows ISPs to connect everyone to the internet. I've never heard of a country doing what yours does (although, it would make a nicer bit of competition betwen companies if we had more than one internet connection provider).

Anyway, did you work out if it is a connection issue? It is possible to Ping bitfinex from the command line.
I get this:

C:\Users\Laptop>ping bitfinex.com -n 10

Pinging bitfinex.com [104.16.174.181] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=55
Reply from 104.16.174.181: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=55

Ping statistics for 104.16.174.181:
    Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 20ms

For me, normal is 19milliseconds though the internet is a bit slower due to a spike in the use of domestic internet.

[cachalote]

Sorry the delay ... the blog does not tell via email when a new post comes up, so I forgot to check ... ( maybe it can be activated via configuration , will see)

Yes, I had run the ping command before , but just ran it again to compare with your readings and as I expected, my ping has abnormal spikes ... I had contacted the local CloudFlare gateway and apparently they have peering with all local carriers, although I am not sure the attendant was 100% sure of what she meant ... I will keep an eye on this and maybe test other telcos from neighbors , that probably will work ... My concern was that I would be way behind in delay but t seems it is not the case ... although if the spikes are continuous, it probably gets in the way of what I am trying to do ...

Pinging bitfinex.com [104.16.173.181] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=52


Telefonica is from Spain, correct, but it is also one of the two biggest carrier in Brazil, it came to the country when the telecom monopoly by government companies fell aprt in 1997 aproximately ... and I believe all major capitals have the fierce competition between telcos ... you must live in a smaller town to have one internet gateway , I suppose .

[jackg]

Sorry the delay ... the blog does not tell via email when a new post comes up, so I forgot to check ... ( maybe it can be activated via configuration , will see)

Yes, I had run the ping command before , but just ran it again to compare with your readings and as I expected, my ping has abnormal spikes ... I had contacted the local CloudFlare gateway and apparently they have peering with all local carriers, although I am not sure the attendant was 100% sure of what she meant ... I will keep an eye on this and maybe test other telcos from neighbors , that probably will work ... My concern was that I would be way behind in delay but t seems it is not the case ... although if the spikes are continuous, it probably gets in the way of what I am trying to do ...

Pinging bitfinex.com [104.16.173.181] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=52
Reply from 104.16.173.181: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=52


Telefonica is from Spain, correct, but it is also one of the two biggest carrier in Brazil, it came to the country when the telecom monopoly by government companies fell aprt in 1997 aproximately ... and I believe all major capitals have the fierce competition between telcos ... you must live in a smaller town to have one internet gateway , I suppose .

Nope. The entirety of my country (england) and in face the entire of the uk only have openreach to connect everyone. My town has 30000 residents alone and you can walk from North to South in about an hour.

The 42milliseconds reading does look like it's a bit abnormal but the rest look alright (a bit slow compared to mine but not too bad).
You could always try calling again and see if you get someone who knows a bit more about it (but that might be difficult to find).

[ARTHurt]

I personally don't think it's a problem of internet speed or roundtrip times but it might be related to the way you do trading.
Analyzing the orderbook and placing orders as a Maker... it's quite mathematically to profit/loss as expected.

[cachalote]

Yes ARTHurt, you are absolutely right , I am new to actual trading, and doing actual trading has its minor details ... one of them is the maker/taker fees ... I think the X of the question is just try to do scalping with Market order is impossible, first because of the volatility and the platform always puts you in he "worst" price and second because the fee  is raised to 0,4 % using Bitfinex and paying Taker fees at Market Orders ... so it almost always get you in debt for little variations ... I am trying to correct this using POST LIMIT Order , setting the price by clicking directly in the chart ... I designed my new humble strategy but still didn't try it .... and lost all the Bitcoin latest rally ... :|  but since I fit myself at the speculator niche (buying ad selling no matter what), I am trying to keep the cool attitude ...

[ARTHurt]

Yes ARTHurt, you are absolutely right , I am new to actual trading, and doing actual trading has its minor details ... one of them is the maker/taker fees ... I think the X of the question is just try to do scalping with Market order is impossible, first because of the volatility and the platform always puts you in he "worst" price and second because the fee  is raised to 0,4 % using Bitfinex and paying Taker fees at Market Orders ... so it almost always get you in debt for little variations ... I am trying to correct this using POST LIMIT Order , setting the price by clicking directly in the chart ... I designed my new humble strategy but still didn't try it .... and lost all the Bitcoin latest rally ... :|  but since I fit myself at the speculator niche (buying ad selling no matter what), I am trying to keep the cool attitude ...

When you do day trading, every fraction of the spread counts...

That means the commission difference between Maker/Taker counts.
To maximize your chances in day trading you should avoid as much as possible placing Taker orders (bigger fees, spread handicap) - as a Maker, the math is easier - anticipate the market move, be patient and try not to be too greedy.
Good luck!