Quote from: cul on April 13, 2013, 11:08:31 PM

Betfair (sports bet exchange) can handle more transactions per second than the NYSE. They invented a technology called Flywheel which, apparently, allows them to do it with only 2 x $50,000 servers.

They wouldnt touch bitcoin with a bargepole, but if someone could hire their programmers, or license their technology things would be much improved.

http://www.hpts.ws/papers/2007/HPTS%20Workshop%20-%20Betfair%20-%20Flywheel.pdf

50,000 transactions per second.

Thanks for the Betfair 'Flywheel' link. Until you mentioned it I hadn't realised my period of trading on Betfair a while back was probably what had set my expectation level for a reasonable processing capacity for a trading platform. I was not aware the fluctuation in demand and sheer volume had meant they actually had to develop an exceptional system. Maybe it's too late for MtGox - maybe we'll look at them in a few years as the AltaVista that led the way for a short while - but surely some of the new VC-backed trading platforms that appear to be on their way to open this market up nicely should at least be looking at the principles behind the Betfair system.

As someone has mentioned before the likes of the NYSE, by having access restricted to brokers, have the luxury of not having hoards of amateurs jumping on trends at whim causing the kind of peaks in demand the Betfair system is designed to handle. I'm no programmer but I kinda like where you're coming from with this cul.