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Who would have thought that 2 of the world’s most renowned universities would be holding a contest on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies just a few years ago? Our dear crypto-actives are going to be the subject of a trading competition. So we will see teams from Oxford and Cambridge Universities competing against each other.
According to an announcement published on November 25th, students from the mathematics and computer science departments of the British universities of Oxford and Cambridge will soon compete in an algorithmic trading competition.
The month-long competition will pit 15 teams against each other to develop algorithms that will execute trades on the cash markets of the Coinbase Pro and FTX crypto exchanges.
The teams will have to work through APEX:E3, a provider of multi-asset analytics for retail and institutional investors, which is also the main sponsor of the competition.
“Algorithmic trading is a significant use case for many areas of advanced computing (…) by turning it into a competition, APEX:E3 has created a fun and risk-free way for students to learn more about the industry and apply their creativity and expertise to the unique challenges of this field. » said Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser, Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge
In addition to the Coinbase and FTX platforms, other players in the crypto sector are also taking part in this inter-university competition: the Swiss SIX Digital Exchange, the crypto platform dedicated to institutional LMAX Digital and ConsenSys Mesh, which brings together development teams from the Ethereum ecosystem (ETH).
“The evolution of the financial markets in the 2020s will require new innovations and advances in the areas of digital assets, as well as in techniques for analyzing digital asset data. We need to help cultivate talent to contribute to this development.
Tim Grant, CEO of SIX Digital Exchange
To determine the best teams, they will be evaluated on :
Their return on investment;
Their trading strategy(ies);
The design of their algorithm.
Each student team will receive seed money at the start of the competition. As a reward, the winning team will keep this seed money as well as the returns it has earned.
If this initiative between cryptos players and universities is a success, APEX:E3’s Managing Director, Usman Khan, has indicated that they will make this algorithmic trading tournament an annual event. He also said that other universities around the world would be called upon to participate in future editions.