Polymarket Opens Nex Sandbox Targeting 100k Commands

Polymarket has opened sandbox testing for Nex, a trading system rewritten in Rust that its engineering team states can handle 100,000 commands per second, according to an announcement by Josh Stevens, Polymarket’s vice president of engineering for DeFi. The system is targeting a conditional mid-December launch.

Performance and Benchmarks

In published performance figures, Nex targets 100,000 commands per second at launch, with capacity for short bursts of 150,000. This compares against the current central limit order book, which handles 10,000 commands per second under steady load and 15,000 during short bursts. Internal exchange testing showed that p99 order placement fell from 1.55 seconds to 3.76 milliseconds, while startup time dropped from five minutes to 15 seconds.

Stevens noted that the published metrics represent internal exchange timings rather than end-to-end performance. The rewrite began in August following conclusions that the previous system required a complete rebuild to eliminate race conditions and inconsistent behavior.

Testing and Deployment

The sandbox environment has spent the past week running alongside the existing exchange, mirroring production orders to compare response times, stability under load, and matching accuracy. Polymarket plans four weeks of shadow operation before deciding whether to deploy the system in mid-December. Existing requests and responses will remain compatible for market makers and builders.

Key facts

• Polymarket opened sandbox testing for the Rust-based Nex trading system, targeting 100,000 commands per second.
• Internal p99 order placement improved from 1.55 seconds to 3.76 milliseconds in company testing.
• The engineering team plans four weeks of shadow testing ahead of a conditional mid-December deployment.
• The existing central limit order book handles 10,000 commands per second under steady load.