HACKER Q&A
📣 max_

How Safe Is Alpaca?


I have been looking at https://alpaca.markets/ and wanted to use it to test out some of my API based trading.

What guarantees or structures are in place to make sure it doesn't end up like FTX?

  👤 not_your_vase Accepted Answer ✓
You know, I keep reading web3isgoinggreat, and after every rugpull and hack I always think to myself "who throws thousands and millions into random 3-weeks-old exchanges with names like coolMonkey.coin and kittyCat2DaMoon". Hmmm... I guess this is what it feels to get old.
👤 bombcar
It appears they have various legal registrations with actual US regulatory bodies. If you're playing around on the stock side, it's probably pretty safe.

If you're playing on the crypto side, your main risk would be the crypto going to zero as they are wont to do, but I'd be a bit more hesitant.

With things like this, assume they're going to explode anytime and plan accordingly.

👤 tornato7
Alpaca itself looks legit - however they use third-party providers to source liquidity for your crypto trades, and I don't see it disclosed who those providers are - so that's who I would be worried about. Not only that but the trades are very opaque; I don't see an order book endpoint.

You're probably better off just connecting directly to Coinbase or Gemini APIs, or interfacing with Uniswap directly. You can also take a look at hummingbot, they provide some nice abstractions.