On Tuesday, Deecember 22nd, at approximately 8:00 AM UTC, we will implement our new Self Trading Prevention (STP) system. At Thalex, our mission has always been to provide a fair, transparent, and reliable trading environment for all participants. As our platform continues to grow and serve an increasingly diverse set of traders, we are excited to announce the upcoming implementation of our STP mechanism.
What Is Self Trading?
Self-trading occurs when a user’s own buy and sell orders match against each other. This can happen unintentionally, especially for traders using multiple strategies, automated trading systems, or API-based order placement.
Why We're Implementing STP
- STP is important for Thalex, as it prevents a number of market manipulation techniques. It contributes to more accurate order books and market data, so the prices and volumes seen reflect real market activity.
- Traders using bots, APIs or multiple accounts benefit from STP, as this mechanism automatically prevents conflicts between orders across strategies and/or accounts.
- Aligning with other top-tier exchanges which also implement STP, giving our traders the same professional-level safeguards
How Will It Work?
- Implied matching: a trade is a self-trade if any of the passive order executions produced are self-trades in relation to the taker order.
- Combo matching: a trade is a self-trade if any of the order executions produced on the leg books are self-trades in relation to the taker order.
It can work on two levels:
- Customer level - orders are only considered self trading if they belong to the same customer (default)
- Account level - orders are only considered self trading when they cross other orders within the same account
Supported STP Actions:
- Cancel taker order with partial fill - fill from top-of-book up until the self-trade level (default).
- Cancel taker order with no fill.
- No support for canceling orders in the books.
By default, STP will will be on customer level and partial fill action for the majority of the customers.
Bots:
- Always use the default STP level and action for orders placed by bots.
- If any order self-trades, stop the bot.
Conditional orders: Uses the default STP level and action for converted conditional orders.