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Starbase is Deribit’s high-performance matching engine designed for institutional trading and market makers. Equipped with a Simple Binary Encoding (SBE) API, Starbase provides direct access to the matching engine with ultra-low latency, making it ideal for high-frequency trading applications. Standard Deribit WebSocket APIs (e.g. private/get_user_trades_by_instrument) also work for orders placed through Starbase. A REST API with utility endpoints such as an order purge or order snapshot will also be added.
Starbase is accessible exclusively via colocated cross-connect at Deribit’s data center or via AWS Private Link for clients connecting from AWS infrastructure. Internet connectivity is not supported. Contact colo-support@coinbase.com to arrange access.
Open orders placed via Starbase are not visible in the Deribit web UI. Due to Starbase’s performance characteristics, the feed that powers the UI cannot keep up with the matching engine. Trades and positions will appear in the UI as expected — only open orders are affected.
The main components of the Starbase API:

Binary Order Entry API

The Binary Order Entry API provides direct access to the matching engine using a high-performance binary protocol optimized for ultra-low latency trading.
  • Order Entry: Place, amend, and cancel orders with minimal latency. Supports single orders, mass quotes (up to 15 double-sided quotes), and mass cancellation.
  • Market Maker Protection (MMP): Built-in protection against adverse selection. See Market Maker Protection for details.
  • Self Match Prevention (SMP): A highly flexible system to avoid matching order internally.

Multicast Market Data

Market data is distributed via multicast channels organized by product type (BTC perpetuals/futures, BTC options, ETH perpetuals/futures, ETH options, etc.). The multicast channels have:
  • Market-by-order data: Market data is sent as L3 data, allowing for full reconstruction of the order book.
  • A/B Redundancy: Duplicate feeds (A and B) for high availability.
  • Snapshot and Incremental Updates: Snapshot feeds provide the full order book state, while incremental feeds provide real-time updates.

FIX Drop Copy

The FIX Drop Copy feed provides a consolidated view of all orders and trades across an entire account, regardless of which gateway they were submitted through.
  • Full order visibility: Captures all order lifecycle events — new, amended, filled, and cancelled.
  • FIX 5.0 SP2: Standard FIX protocol for easy integration with existing OMS/EMS systems.
  • Account-wide scope: Unlike per-gateway SBE connections, a single Drop Copy session covers the full portfolio.

Gateway Connectivity

Starbase gateways run in hot-hot A/B pairs for resilience, with independent rate limits on each side. Clients are expected to connect to both gateways in a pair simultaneously for optimal throughput and redundancy.
  • Colocated cross-connect: Lowest latency option for clients physically present in Deribit’s data center.
  • AWS Private Link: Secure private connectivity for clients on AWS without routing traffic over the public internet.
  • Multiple gateway pairs: Gateways are partitioned by underlying asset (BTC, ETH, Tier 2/3) to allow horizontal scaling.