It is a big loss of your time and nobody will give you back that one. I suggest you to use your time in non zero-sum games, something that can create value for you and society. Now that you have some saving you can definitely afford it.
The next best thing of not doing it is to quit doing it now.
Disclaimer: I built a similar system in the past, took some gains and then realised the above. I then quitted to build a company.
I have been working on such a system and it is NOT a huge loss of your time. I've learned so much things in the past year, in market microstructure, in networking (infrastructure, protocols), cloud computing, cloud management (docker swarm, kubernetes), linux kernel bypass, distributed systems, data base, and I've read hundreds of papers on neural networks, gaussian processes, etc... If you are wondering if you should get into this, it is one of the best learning experience you will ever have.
Disclaimer: I built a similar system in the past, took some gains and then realised the above. I then quitted to build a company.