Developer Builds Zero-Dependency Quant Time-Series Database in Rust in 72 Hours

A developer built ZeroTick, a high-frequency time-series database for market order flow, using only the Rust standard library and zero external dependencies. The project was completed in 72 hours and can ingest up to 250,000 ticks per second while compressing data to disk in real time using hand-rolled Gorilla-style bit packing. Unlike the common industry approach of combining Python analytics with Rust or C++ via FFI bindings, ZeroTick operates entirely in pure Rust, eliminating latency costs from cross-language data marshalling and garbage collection pauses. The database uses an append-only, thread-per-connection architecture built on POSIX primitives, with concurrent reads and writes handled through absolute-offset file access to avoid lock contention. The project's Cargo.toml lists no dependencies whatsoever, meaning every component beyond the standard library was written from scratch by the developer.