Glossary

Short definitions for the choices you encounter when trading, providing liquidity, launching or learning about lending. Lending is not ready yet. Follow the linked guides when you need help understanding a choice.

Atomic launch

A launch created and opened in one transaction. If that transaction reverts, its launch effects are undone.

Author royalty

A creator-agreed share of owner fees earned by the market using an author's hook. It supports the builder without adding another trading fee or taking from rewards and burns.

Base asset

The asset being priced. In a TOKEN/USDC market, TOKEN is commonly the base asset and its price is expressed in USDC.

Beacon

An Abyss market type where fees follow the asset paid into a trade, with both standard and truncated price histories.

Canonical observation

A checkpoint in the market's standard history of price and active liquidity. It records market activity, not an assessment of fair value.

Cardinality

The capacity of a price-history record: how many checkpoints it can retain. More capacity does not mean the record already contains more history.

Collateral

Eligible supplied assets used to support borrowing. Their counted value depends on the lending market's settings and prices.

Dividends

Rewards allocated to eligible token holders without requiring a staking deposit. They depend on actual funding and do not promise a return.

Exact input

A trade where you fix the amount to spend and set a minimum amount to receive.

Exact output

A trade where you fix the amount to receive and set a maximum amount to spend.

Fee quote pool

A pool that charges swap fees in its selected quote asset. Stream and Lighthouse are the Abyss market types that use this behavior.

Health factor

Counted collateral value divided by debt value. Below 1, a lending position can be liquidated. See managing a lending position.

Hook

A contract that gives a Uniswap V4 pool additional rules, such as its hook-fee behavior. One pool has one hook, even when it contains several liquidity ranges.

Lighthouse

An Abyss market type with quote-asset fees and both standard and truncated price histories.

Liquidation

Repayment of eligible debt by someone who receives collateral plus the market's configured bonus. It can occur when a borrower's health factor falls below 1.

Liquidity range

The band of prices where a position offers trades. Outside that band, it stops earning trading fees until price returns.

Market identity

The complete details distinguishing one pool from another. The same token pair can have separate pools with different fees, types, quote choices or price-history settings. V4 also identifies the pool by its hook and tick spacing.

Observation history

A rolling record of market activity. New checkpoints eventually replace older ones; a quiet market can have sparse or stale history.

Oracle

A source of price information used by another contract or application. Its value can differ from the price available for an actual trade.

Oracle profile

The setting that controls how quickly a truncated price history can move and how much history it can retain.

Position NFT

The NFT representing control of an ordinary liquidity position and its available amounts. Transferring it transfers that control; locked positions have separate custody rules.

Price impact

The change your trade causes as it uses available liquidity. A larger trade in a shallow market can move the price substantially.

Quote asset

The asset used to express the base asset's price. In TOKEN/USDC, a price of 2 means two USDC per TOKEN. Its name does not establish stability or backing.

Slippage limit

The limit on how much execution can differ from the outcome you accept. It can make a trade fail rather than complete at worse terms. See trading.

Spot price

The pool's current live price. Truncated price observations do not restrict it.

Staged launch

A launch prepared over one or more transactions and opened in a later activation. Preparation alone does not mean trading has opened.

Staking

Depositing tokens into a reward vault to participate in its funded rewards. It differs from receiving holder dividends while tokens remain in a wallet.

Standard

An Abyss market type where fees follow the input asset, with standard price history only.

Stream

An Abyss market type where fees are charged in the quote asset, with standard price history only.

Tick

A numbered price step. Each adjacent step changes the underlying price by a factor of 1.0001. Pool tick spacing determines which steps can be range boundaries.

Truncated oracle

An additional history that limits how far each newly recorded tick can move. It can soften a sudden change in recorded history without restricting the live trading price. See truncated price history.

Truncated tick

The latest tick in that capped history. It can lag the live market after a sharp move.

Venue

A place where trades settle. A Black Market launch can use Abyss DEX, Uniswap V4, or both.