This is definitely not a solution intended for hobbyists. This is a solution for big HFT players that have optimized already all their trading components, from

This is definitely not a solution intended for hobbyists. This is a solution for big HFT players that have optimized already all their trading components, from exchange proximity to fine grained application optimization.(and everything in between). The competition is leveling out because most players have gotten the basic tricks; this is just the next logical step in evolution. It has been proved in practice that fpga based trading systems consistently edge out normal cpu based ones(atm anyway). Most likely, in the future, companies will be forced to move to such a solution or get left behind.