The Internet is abuzz with the news about various crypto-currencies. From the old favourite BitCoin to the bold newcomers, such as Etherium and Ripple (not that new actually), lots of frantic trading and even more frenzied discussion is taking place. The new currencies are viewed as the end of era of the old money dominance over the finances of the world.

In my view we are still very far from that. BitCoin suffers from various limitations, well publicised. Other crypto-currencies lack the aura of the first new kid on the block - too much choice, no clear winner. All of them have no recognition by governments or major financial institutions.

All that said, it doesn't mean that existing trading techniques cannot help us to earn money with the new instruments. In many ways the crypto-currency world behaves similarly to the FX trading. Lots of various exchanges, many dodgy ones. Great diversity of protocols, fees and trustworthiness.

There are some differences, however. The software development world has improved in the recent years a lot. Cloud computing and numerous open and closed source projects make development of new automated strategies for crypto-currency trading not only feasible, but quite attractive. This is a familiar area to me, after all I have been writing this kind of software for the last 15 years give or take. Without the restriction of the large corporate machine development and deployment should be much simplified. I will be working in this field in the near future to see what opportunities crypto-currency algo trading can bring.