Market and limit orders
An order records what its owner allows. A price preview does not place an order or move funds.
Market orders
Section titled “Market orders”A market order tries to fill now against the best offers, within the owner’s chosen slippage on the Contract price. Any amount that cannot match is canceled.
Slippage is how much worse the Contract price may be than the best available offer when the market order is prepared. It does not describe the whole BTC market price move.
For a buyer, it limits how much more they may pay. For a seller, it limits how much less they may accept. If the best Contract price is 100 USDC and slippage is 2%, the buyer’s maximum is 102 USDC; the seller’s minimum is 98 USDC. These examples use a 1 BTC reference size.
A market order uses fixed-price behavior. It cannot be a target or become a direct swap. If the chosen contract direction is ineligible, the order is refused because it cannot wait.
Limit orders
Section titled “Limit orders”A limit order has strict terms and no slippage. It can stay open until it fills, is canceled, or expires. It may wait for a matching buyer or seller, or for its chosen direction to become eligible again.
The order never changes direction on its own. The owner can cancel the unfilled remainder and place a new order with different terms.
A fixed-price limit order does not have a separate conversion-price limit in the current design. Real swap execution and protection from price manipulation remain important production work.
Target orders
Section titled “Target orders”A target uses limit behavior. If conversion is below the target, a contract fill needs an eligible direction and a positive buyer payment that funds exactly the target. If conversion meets it, the execution is a direct swap.
What can a buyer bound?
Section titled “What can a buyer bound?”A Contract buyer bounds their price, size, and expiry. A resting buyer order does not lock or bound q. The fill uses the Split rate calculated at execution.
Expiry and matching
Section titled “Expiry and matching”Orders expire at the UTC trading-day cutoff or an earlier owner-set time. Canceling or expiry releases only the unused reservation. Completed fills stay locked.
The planned server matcher finds compatible orders. Smart contracts must enforce each person’s allowed spending. The production priority rules, including how target orders compare with fixed-price orders, still need to be finalized and tested. The prototype’s matching behavior is a mock assumption.