Sounds like a very cool project. I'm working on java trading code, too and might be somewhat further in _some_ aspects, since I have a running bot for a couple of months. I might be willing to donate some code, if you can specify, where you need help. I'm also interested to share some code/development in some areas, where I'm not that far. Like a simple trading language to define loadable strategies. I wanted to use drools for that.
I like rules engines too, and have used Drools in the past, but for this application you really gotta check out Esper
http://esper.codehaus.org/ which is at the core of Coin Trader. Esper is like a rules engine for time series, and in combination with Coin Trader's schema, you can create all kinds of triggers and signals on market events:
@When(" select avg(price) from Trade.win:time(30 sec) where symbol='BTC.USD' ")
void averagePriceChanged( double avgPrice ) {
if( avgPrice < triggerPrice )
placeMarketOrder( Listings.BTC_USD, Side.BUY, 1.0 );
}
But it's still Java and Esper not for beginners. Our goal is to support machine-learning based trading, so anyone who could make strategy writing more accessible would give a lot of value to the project. From an operational point of view also, a simple deployment / configuration language might make a lot of sense. I'm not sure what you have built or want to build, but if you connect with me on github or LinkedIn or email me at shamme/gmail-com, I'd be glad to discuss it more discretely.