However we need to confront a number of design issues to make sure this can be done in a secure way without crashing the server and so forth (i.e. preventing viruses, trojan horses, or programs that consume all available cpu time, and so forth). Until these issues are resolved and programming is complete on such an interface, we are not yet allowing "public" submissions of computerized trading strategies by outside parties for training purposes. We expect to begin allowing this in early 2008.

In the meantime, the public is welcome to sign up for accouts to trade (as a human trader) against a set of computerized trading opponents in the new Java version of the Santa Fe Double Auction. This will give people a chance to understand how the Santa Fe Double Auction works and develop ideas for strategies. You are also encouraged to study Participant's Manual for the 1990 Santa Fe Double Auction Tournament, since while the new interface will be in Java rather than C (although the internals of the trading strategy itself can be in C, C++, Fortran and a variety of other languages), the basic rules that you will need to follow to develop a trading strategy will be the same for the Java version as the previous C version of the Santa Fe Double Auction tournament. In addition, we will provide skeleton programs that deal with all the housekeeping details of message passing to and from the double auction monitor program that handles all the basic communications and enforces the double auction rules.

To trade, you must first register for an account. This will create a user ID and an password that you will need to login as human trader to play on the Santa Fe Double Auction.