BitMEX Market Making: API Limits and WebSocket Data Caveats
Summary
The article discusses practical API considerations for market making on BitMEX, focusing on its Bitcoin perpetual contract. It describes active trading, maker rebates, deep top-of-book liquidity, and relatively small price fluctuations as features that can attract market makers. It also notes a restrictive REST request allowance and the risk of temporary IP bans after repeated rate-limit violations. Response headers expose remaining request capacity, while the article advises favoring WebSocket streams for market data.
The account highlights operational limitations in those streams: order-book updates may drift, order-detail messages can be incomplete, account updates may lag, and volatile markets can add seconds of delay. It suggests that ticker or trade subscriptions may suffice for general market tracking and that REST calls can confirm account information. The article references code elsewhere but provides no performance study, complete implementation, or evidence that these practices produce profitable market making. Exchange behavior and limits may also change over time.
Key ideas
- The article presents BitMEX liquidity and maker rebates as conditions that attract market-making activity.
- It describes a strict REST request limit and the possibility of temporary IP bans after repeated violations.
- WebSocket streams are recommended for market data, but depth, order, and account updates can be incomplete or delayed.
- REST requests can be used to confirm account information when streaming updates are unreliable.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.