Direct Market Access
Currently Bitnomial provides direct market access (DMA) via a TCP/IP-based binary protocol over VPN, VPC Peering, or AWS Direct Connect to an AWS data center.
Contact help@bitnomial.com to begin the registration and on-boarding process.
Direct Connection
During the initial launch phase the Bitnomial matching engine is hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS) US-East-2 (Ohio).
VPC Peering
DMA participants can use AWS VPC Peering to direct-connect DMA participant VPCs with Bitnomial VPCs.
- Bitnomial assigns VPC CIDR block and Availability Zone to the DMA participant.
- The participant reports VPC ID and AWS Account ID to Bitnomial.
- Bitnomial sends peering request to the participant, and reports request ID to the participant.
- Participant accepts peering request and creates route to Bitnomial subnet.
Example VPC Peering Values
The tables below outlines example values for what information needs to be exchanged.
From the participant to Bitnomial:
| Participant → Bitnomial | Value |
|---|---|
| Participant Account ID | 0000000000 |
| Participant VPC ID | vpc-iab32123 |
From Bitnomial to the participant:
| Bitnomial → Participant | Value |
|---|---|
| Bitnomial CIDR Block | 10.240.0.0/16 |
| Participant VPC CIDR Block | 10.192.5.0/24 |
| VPC Availability Zone | us-east-2a |
| Peering Request ID | pcx-afb2f421 |
| Gateway IP:Port | 10.240.2.32:9000 |
| Pricefeed IP:Port | 10.240.4.42:9001 |
VPN
Customer DMA connectivity is provided via an IPsec VPN using BGP routing. A primary and backup tunnel are provided for fail-over redundancy.
To establish a VPN connection (4 steps):
1. Customer Information Gathering
The customer reports the intended public IP address of the VPN server to Bitnomial.
2. Bitnomial VPN Configuration
Bitnomial provisions customer access and the VPN connection and reports the primary and backup tunnel IP addresses to the customer. Primary and backup pre-share keys will be communicated via a conference call set up by Bitnomial.
3. Customer VPN Configuration
The customer configures Primary/Backup Tunnels Phase 1 (IKE) with the following information:
| Configuration | Value |
|---|---|
| IKE version | IKEv1 |
| Authentication Method | Pre-Shared Key |
| Authentication Algorithm | sha1 |
| Encryption Algorithm | aes-128-cbc |
| Lifetime | 28800 seconds |
| Phase 1 Negotiation Mode | main |
| Diffie-Hellman | Group 2 |
The customer configures Primary/Backup Tunnels Phase 2 (IPsec) with the following information:
| Configuration | Value |
|---|---|
| Protocol | esp |
| Authentication Algorithm | hmac-sha1-96 |
| Encryption Algorithm | aes-128-cbc |
| Lifetime | 3600 seconds |
| Mode | tunnel |
| Perfect Forward Secrecy | Diffie-Hellman Group 2 |
4. VPN Tunnel Confirmation
Both Bitnomial and the customer confirm primary and backup tunnel statuses are UP.
Routing
Bitnomial uses static IP routing and address blocks to avoid overlapping IP addresses (per RFC
1918). Customers assign hosts within the assigned
range. For example, a customer may be assigned a CIDR
Block of the form
10.192.5.0/24.
Firewalls need to allow TCP traffic from the order entry gateway/pricefeed IPs and ports that have been allocated. Customers can test exchange connectivity by attempting to login to their order entry gateway/pricefeed.
Note: ICMP messages (pings) are disabled.
Environments
Bitnomial supports three customer-facing environments:
- Production (Prod), used for the production trading, clearing, and settlement.
- Sandbox (Sandbox), used for testing and certification.
- Disaster Recovery (DR), used for disaster fail over.
Production
Production environment settings are defined on a per-customer basis.
Sandbox
The Sandbox environment is available 24/7, but the market hours are limited so different market states can be tested. Market hours are 5:00pm - 4:00pm CPT T+1, Monday through Friday.
All products are currently price-time FIFO CLOB matched. Live sandbox products can be viewed via the Exchange HTTP API.
Sandbox Product Specs
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Product Name | Sandbox Bitcoin US Dollar Futures |
| Product Code | ZZZ |
| Contract Size | 1 Bitcoin |
| Price Quotation | US Dollars |
| Min Price Fluctuation | $1 USD per contract ($1 USD per Bitcoin) |
| Max Order Size | 10000 |
| Price Band Variation | $2,500,000 |
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Product Name | Sandbox Bitcoin US Dollar Calendar Spread |
| Product Code | ZZZ-ZZZ |
| Quantity Ratio | -1:+1 |
| Price Quotation | US Dollars |
| Min Price Fluctuation | $1 USD per contract ($1 USD per Bitcoin) |
| Max Order Size | 10000 |
| Price Band Variation | $500,000 |