Do you work at/have worked at a trading firm? Frontrunning is indeed illegal and several firms get fined for it.
I was at a top trading shop and we and other places take compliance pretty seriously nowadays. Otherwise (if you aren't a prop firm) you'll lose clients, get fined, lose reputation, etc.
Also fyi being the very fastest has diminishing returns. You are at the whim of the exchange's matching engine processing order, which may be nondeterministic.
There are places nowadays that derive their edge from fast hw/sw, but increasingly, the most successful places are ones with the smarter strategies, higher volume, and more products traded.
I was at a top trading shop and we and other places take compliance pretty seriously nowadays. Otherwise (if you aren't a prop firm) you'll lose clients, get fined, lose reputation, etc.
Also fyi being the very fastest has diminishing returns. You are at the whim of the exchange's matching engine processing order, which may be nondeterministic.
There are places nowadays that derive their edge from fast hw/sw, but increasingly, the most successful places are ones with the smarter strategies, higher volume, and more products traded.