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I built an AI trading platform in six days. That’s terrifying
The barrier that once separated retail hobbyists from institutional-grade trading infrastructure has collapsed.
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AI coding agents can easily create trading platforms that once would have required the work of a well-funded fintech team of eight, says the writer.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Darri Eythorsson
A few weeks ago, I sat down at my laptop and built a trading platform. It connects to three financial exchanges. It ingests news from RSS feeds, web searches, Reddit and Twitter. It uses a large language model to analyse markets, estimate probabilities and decide when the price is wrong. It sizes positions using the Kelly criterion. It manages risk across a portfolio. It routes orders intelligently across venues.
The platform runs around the clock without supervision. It is a production-grade system spanning 50 modules – exchange connectors, risk management, natural-language analysis, order routing, portfolio tracking, etc. It trades prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi.
