Make Every Word Tell

The Blink Protocol is a standardized method for defining how to exchange messages in and between systems. Blink makes it easy for people to define what information to exchange and how. It also eliminates friction in the communications machinery.

The philosophy of Blink is that efficient communication follows from making every word tell.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

-- William Strunk, Jr. The Elements of Style. 1918. [1]

In a Blink

The blink of the eye takes about a hundred milliseconds. In that time frame, you can pass a million trading messages over Blink.

Key Properties

• An integrated, easy to use protocol specification language
• A straightforward, efficient, and compact binary transfer format
• A second binary transfer format that trades compactness for even lower processing overhead. This format can also be used as a native memory layout in modern x86 processors
• Three text renderings: XML, JSON, and Blink Tag
• Self‐describing message streams
• Platform independence
• Interaction model independence
• Suitability for FPGA implementation

Blink is free to use for any purpose.

Blink was designed by Pantor Engineering AB for internal and client use, and we decided to make it publicly available. The design and specifications are in a beta phase, and are improving thanks to feedback from people inside and outside the financial markets community.