BYTEX
An event-driven algorithmic trading engine for .NET — one strategy, from backtest to live.
BYTEX is an open-source trading platform written in C#. It lets you write a trading strategy once and run it unchanged against historical data, against live market data with simulated execution, and against real exchange accounts. The engine is deterministic, asset-class agnostic, and built around a small set of composable components that are the same in every environment.
Status: pre-release. APIs may change between minor versions until 1.0; what counts as an API and how the promise is held are in docs/versioning.md. Backtesting, sandbox and live trading run the same strategy code on the same engine, with the pre-trade limits and the halt a live node needs. The venue adapters are beta until they complete verification against live venues.
Every commit runs more than 3,400 tests on Linux, Windows and macOS, and none of them is skipped: a defect is found by a test that states the right answer, and the fix is what makes that test pass. What each release fixed is in the changelog; what is still open is an issue.
Why BYTEX
- Research-to-production parity. Backtest, sandbox, and live trading run the same strategy code on the same engine components. What you tested is what trades.
- Deterministic by design. A single-threaded tradingRuntime processes every event in a defined order; a backtest replayed twice produces identical results.
- No floating-point money. Prices, quantities, and balances are fixed-point
decimalvalues with explicit precision. - Multi-venue, multi-strategy. Run several strategies across several venues in one process, with a shared portfolio and risk layer.
- Pluggable integrations. Exchanges and data providers are adapters built on one SDK. Add a venue without touching the engine.
- Plain .NET. No scripting layer, no bindings — strategies are C# classes with full tooling support.
Capabilities
| Area | What is included |
|---|---|
| Strategy SDK | RuntimeModule and Strategy base classes with lifecycle, data, order, and position handlers; typed configuration; order factory; cache and portfolio access; clock and timers; indicators |
| Orders | market, limit, stop-market, stop-limit, market-if-touched, limit-if-touched, trailing stops, market-to-limit; GTC / IOC / FOK / GTD / DAY; post-only, reduce-only, iceberg display quantity; OCO / OTO / OUO contingencies; bracket orders; stop and if-touched orders triggered in the engine for venues that have none, released as market or limit under the same id; execution algorithms that work one order as many, with TWAP included |
| Backtesting | simulated venues with a per-instrument matching engine, fills bounded by the size on offer, fill and slippage models, fee models by rate, notional or contract, funding on perpetuals, liquidation of margin accounts, cash and margin accounts; bar, quote, and trade data; Parquet data catalog; performance reports; batch runs over instrument lists, period lists and parameter grids, compared in one table |
| Live trading | trading node with live clock, exchange adapters, reconciliation at start-up and, if asked, while it runs, sandbox execution (live data, simulated fills), optional Redis state persistence; a local control channel for status, a view of what the node holds, cancel, flatten, halt, release and limits |
| Risk | pre-trade validation of precision, size, notional, rate limits; cash balance and margin checks; a loss limit that counts what open positions are down as well as what was realised, watches it between fills and stops the node when it is reached; exposure limits; caps on open positions and working orders; trading state control and a halt that leaves the node running |
| Strategy documents | a strategy as data: a typed node graph (data, indicators, levels, conditions, actions, risk, flow, events) with a node catalog whose every parameter choice carries its own name, unit and sentence, a three-layer validator and a deterministic runtime; sizing carries a ceiling, so a risk-based rule cannot stake the account; an order can be worked in pieces by an execution algorithm the document names; the same document backtests, paper trades and trades live |
| Adapters | Binance (spot, USDⓈ-M futures, COIN-M futures), Bitget (spot, USDT- and USDC-margined perpetuals), Bybit (spot, linear perpetuals, inverse contracts, options), Gate (spot, USDT perpetuals, USDT delivery futures), Hyperliquid (perpetuals), Kraken (spot, futures), KuCoin (spot, futures), OKX (spot, perpetual swaps, dated futures); Databento and Tardis historical data; adapter SDK for new venues |
| Tooling | bytex CLI for backtests, live nodes, catalog management, strategy documents (validate, catalog, schema, examples), API key verification, and a control channel for a running node; Docker image; notebook support |
Roadmap
| Release | Milestone | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1 ✅ | Foundation | tradingRuntime · backtesting · live and sandbox trading · Binance · Bybit · test suite |
| 0.2 ✅ | Strategy Documents | strategies as data · node catalog · validator · runtime · example documents · node control channel |
| 0.3 ✅ | Risk | loss and exposure limits · position and order caps · margin checks · kill switch · limits from configuration, control channel or command line |
| 0.4 ✅ | Execution | order emulation · execution algorithms (TWAP) · continuous reconciliation · batch runs and parameter sweeps · a loss limit watched between fills that stops the node · every parameter choice saying what it means |
| 0.5 ✅ | Realism | fills bounded by the size on offer · funding payments on perpetuals · liquidation of margin accounts · per-contract fees · reference backtests run on every commit |
| 0.6 ✅ | Depth | order-book-level matching · own-order book · a paper venue matched against its venue's live book · margin held for working orders · leverage stated by the strategy |
| 0.7 ✅ | Venues | OKX · Kraken · Bitget · Gate · Hyperliquid · KuCoin Futures · a broker id on every order an adapter sends |
| 0.8 ✅ | Resumption and large data | a killed node comes back the same · timers that keep their phase · backtests over data larger than memory · what the catalog holds, and putting it right · CSV files an exchange actually hands out |
| 0.9 ✅ | Markets and state | Databento · full Redis state and the bus on Redis streams · cloud storage for the catalog · strategies added and stopped while a node runs · margin models · position snapshots and figures of your own · a wider indicator set · information-driven bars · node types a plugin brings · a run as one page · documents evaluated on ticks · the recordings checked against the venues once per release |
| 0.10 ✅ | State, strictness and book depth | a node's state in PostgreSQL · one key layout shared by every backing store, and a conformance suite each answers · the last bar of a window checked against the venues · five things the engine accepted while quietly doing something else · a backtest fed a real order book, from a vendor that gives the first day of every month away · depth stored in bounded files, because an instrument-day is 4.3 GiB · order books that compare equal when their levels are equal |
| 1.0 | Stable | verification against live venues · the API freeze taking effect |
A milestone marked ✅ is delivered; the changelog says what each one carried. 0.8 and 0.9 shipped together as 0.9.0, because everything in both was finished before either was cut. The rest have no dates: a release ships when it is ready and the order may change, and fixes do not wait for a milestone - they ship continuously as patch releases. The same list lives in docs/roadmap.md.
Quick start
Build from source (the packages are attached to every release, and installation shows how to use them; they are not on nuget.org yet):
git clone https://github.com/BYTEX-TRADE/bytex
cd bytex
dotnet build
dotnet run --project examples/Bytex.Examples -- backtest-ema-crosspublic sealed record EmaCrossConfig : StrategyConfig { public required MarketKey MarketKey { get; init; } public required CandleSeries CandleSeries { get; init; } public int FastPeriod { get; init; } = 10; public int SlowPeriod { get; init; } = 20; public decimal TradeSize { get; init; } = 1m; } public sealed class EmaCross : Strategy<EmaCrossConfig> { private readonly ExponentialMovingAverage _fast; private readonly ExponentialMovingAverage _slow; public EmaCross(EmaCrossConfig config) : base(config) { _fast = new ExponentialMovingAverage(config.FastPeriod); _slow = new ExponentialMovingAverage(config.SlowPeriod); } protected override void OnStart() { RegisterIndicatorForBars(Config.CandleSeries, _fast); RegisterIndicatorForBars(Config.CandleSeries, _slow); SubscribeBars(Config.CandleSeries); } protected override void OnBar(Bar bar) { if (!_fast.IsInitialized || !_slow.IsInitialized) { return; } var instrument = Cache.Instrument(Config.MarketKey)!; var quantity = instrument.MakeQuantity(Config.TradeSize); if (_fast.Value > _slow.Value && Portfolio.IsFlat(Config.MarketKey)) { SubmitOrder(OrderFactory.Market(Config.MarketKey, OrderSide.Buy, quantity)); } else if (_fast.Value < _slow.Value && Portfolio.IsNetLong(Config.MarketKey)) { CloseAllPositions(Config.MarketKey); } } }
The same class runs in a BacktestEngine, in a sandbox, or in a live
TradingNode. Full walkthroughs are in docs/getting-started.
Command line
The bytex tool runs backtests and trading nodes from JSON configuration
(installable with dotnet tool install --global Bytex.Cli once the packages
are on nuget.org; from source, use dotnet run --project src/Bytex.Cli --):
bytex catalog fetch-instruments --path ./catalog --venue BINANCE --quote USDT bytex catalog import-csv --path ./catalog --file btcusdt-1m.csv --kind bars --instrument bx-market:v2/BINANCE/BTCUSDT --candle-series bx-candle:v2/BINANCE/BTCUSDT/minute/1/last/provider bytex --plugins ./plugins backtest --config examples/configs/backtest-ema-cross.json bytex --plugins ./plugins run --config examples/configs/sandbox-binance-ema-cross.json
A strategy written as a document needs no C# at all:
bytex documents examples --out ./documents bytex documents validate --document ./documents/ema-cross.json --catalog ./catalog bytex --plugins ./plugins backtest --config examples/configs/backtest-document.json
Strategies are referenced by type name in JSON and loaded from plugin assemblies, so one CLI runs any strategy. See docs/getting-started/cli.md.
Repository layout
src/Bytex.Core domain model, messaging, clock, cache, portfolio, engines, Strategy SDK, adapter SDK, plugins
src/Bytex.Indicators technical indicators
src/Bytex.Documents strategy documents: a strategy as data, and the runtime that trades one
src/Bytex.Data Parquet data catalog, CSV loaders
src/Bytex.Backtest simulated venues, backtest engine and node, reports
src/Bytex.Live trading node, tradingRuntime loop, network infrastructure, sandbox execution
src/Bytex.Adapters.* Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Databento, Gate, Hyperliquid, Kraken, KuCoin, OKX, Tardis
src/Bytex.Persistence.Redis Redis state persistence
src/Bytex.Persistence.S3 the data catalog on S3-compatible object storage
src/Bytex.Cli the bytex command-line tool
examples/ example strategies, configurations and the notebook
tests/ unit and integration tests, eight projects
docs/ getting started, concepts, integrations, design notes, requirements, roadmap
Building from source
Requires the .NET 10 SDK.
dotnet build dotnet run --project examples/Bytex.Examples -- backtest-ema-cross
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Security issues should be reported as described in SECURITY.md.
License
BYTEX is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Third-party components are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.
Disclaimer
BYTEX is software for building trading systems. It is not investment advice, and it does not guarantee any trading outcome. Trading financial instruments involves risk of loss. You are solely responsible for any strategy you run and any account you connect.