What is High-Frequency Trading (HFT)?
Until 2015, I was involved in HFT working hand-in-hand with a team that had been instrumental in bringing the world of HFT from milliseconds (0.001 of a second) to microseconds (0.000001 of a second) in practice, and nanoseconds (0.00000001 of a second) in capability. I am not here to tell you what the definition of HFT is, or how it can be done. You can search for it and get a lot of useful information online.
Most of them will not tell you what HFT is is that it is not about market efficiency as many often claim - it's about cheating.
In early 2015, it was clear to me that the edge we possessed could only be used in one way in order to 'win.' To cheat. Others will call it their 'technology,' 'strategy,' 'advantage,' or whatever. The fact is, the highest technology in HFT affords the fund/team/person to cheat in ways of price spoofing, phishing and quote stuffing, to name a few lesser serious offenses.
We decided to quit after one day, a serious looking group of 'influential and successful market investors-billionaires (in Chinese yuan)' came to our office in Shanghai, requesting a customized 'strategy' to 割韭菜（literally translated as 'to reap the Chinese leeks' ). They lure was impressive as the potential 'profit-sharing' can be in the hundreds of millions. 割韭菜 was originally a farming term describing the type of leek that can be harvested repeatedly over a period of time. It rose to the prominence in the modern Chinese financial world as a way to become rich overnight by taking money from unsuspecting suckers. People who use that term on themselves often exhibit a large amount of unashamed-pride and confidence. Cheating to get rich is 'an ability' one must be proud of. So they say.
But not to us.
Over the next few years, we want to use our understanding of the tricks we've learned in HFT technologies, both in software and hardware development, to help combat the cheatings in financial market trading.