Disclosure: I'm CTO of BitMEX, a Bitcoin derivatives exchange built on kdb+/q. We don't compete directly with itBit or any of the exchanges I mention below (we

Disclosure: I'm CTO of BitMEX, a Bitcoin derivatives exchange built on kdb+/q. We don't compete directly with itBit or any of the exchanges I mention below (we don't do spot trading, they don't do derivatives) but we are in a similar space. Audits matter. Your books should always sum zero. Time and time again, we've seen bugs like this across the space: there was the infamous Bitcoinica "infinite leverage" bug [1], a rounding error in another's order sizes, and it's theorized that a similar bug was leveraged in the downfall of MtGox to create virtually infinite balances and use it to buy Bitcoin up to $1000 in 2013. Whether it's in your engine or outside of it, whether it's a Bitcoin product or any other financial product, make sure there is something - somewhere - that is regularly summing up all accounts and ensuring that every cent or satoshi is accounted for. We run such a system at every execution. If the system doesn't sum zero, we shut down. It's happened three times in two and a half years, each time due to tiny mathematical errors in our liquidation process, each time for less than 10,000 satoshis (~$0.10). We sleep much better at night knowing it's there. Audits would catch the error caused by float math. And of course, don't do float math. 1. I can't find the original reference to it, but it was originally possible to simply edit the DOM to submit any leverage amount you pleased (such as 100,000x; never trust the client!) and then run your account massively into profit - or bankruptcy.