Glossary

Price limit — the range a maker's quote must sit in to fill (the term Deribit, Bybit and OKX use for the limits around the mark). With h = half the oracle venue's spread: an ask between the oracle bid and the oracle ask + h; a bid between the oracle bid − h and the oracle ask.

Best maker (single best maker) — for an order of a given size, the admitted maker with the best price that has room for all of it. It fills the whole order (or piece) at its own price. Ties: more room, then the lower account number.

Close account — closes every position in one account; the account ends. The only close for a Protect account.

Confidence check — a per-point sanity check on the oracle venue's quotes; a point that fails is skipped for marks and slippage.

Crossed quotes — one maker's bid above another's ask. Not blocked (no crossing breaker); the price limit keeps the gap small; the makers carry the risk.

Custom — an Earn mode: the maker runs its own quoting program on its own model, usually via an agent, and answers requests with firm, signed quotes.

Firm quote — a maker's signed answer to a request: maker, option, size, price, expiry and nonce. It cannot be withdrawn once it wins; the contract checks the signature, the price limit and the maker's room.

Days protected — on Protect, how long the account's spare margin pays the swap's holding cost at the costliest price before liquidation. ⚠ under 30.

Earn — the maker tab: provide liquidity (TLP or Custom) and earn the spread and holding costs.

Duration — an option's lifetime in months (its mean life). Rate per year = 12 ÷ months. Not a date.

Holding cost (funding) — what holding an option costs: extrinsic × 12 ÷ months × time, priced at the oracle venue's ask. The holder pays, the writer receives, the venue keeps 10 %.

Intrinsic / extrinsic — what the option would pay today / what the market adds for what it might pay later. Only extrinsic costs anything to hold.

Liq. price — the price at which the account's equity meets its maintenance margin. On Protect you choose it.

Mark — what a position is valued at: the oracle venue's bid for a bought option, its ask for a sold one. Used for margin, liquidation and withdrawals. Never a trade price; an option price is never called a mark.

Max slippage — your limit on slippage: 2 % for an option, 1 % of the swap's premium for a Protect swap, 1 % for the perp.

Notional decay — when an Options account has no cash, each bought option sells back just enough of itself to pay its own holding cost, at the best closing price, with no fee. Protect positions have no notional decay.

Flex strike/duration — may move your strike or duration slightly (within the move rates) to where slippage is lower, only when slippage at your pick is over the threshold (default 5 %).

Option — the tab for one call or put, bought or sold.

Oracle venue — the listed options market each asset is anchored to: Deribit (BTC), Derive (HYPE). Its quotes are joined by straight lines.

Perpetual option — a call or put like Deribit's, made perpetual: no expiry date, no time decay to manage; the holder pays a small holding cost.

Slice order / Piece size — an order is cut into pieces of at most the Piece size (default $1,000 of premium); each piece is its own request, priced on its own in its own transaction, and may land on a different maker. A Protect swap slice is a whole premium-neutral pair, filled by one maker.

Protect — a perp plus one premium-neutral option swap that pushes the liquidation price away.

Roll — paying the holding cost; a buy of lost time, priced at the oracle venue's ask.

Slippage — how far your fill is from the oracle venue's price on your side (ask when buying, bid when selling).

Target price / Target ROE — on Protect, where you aim and the return you want there.

Quoting program — the software that answers a maker's requests. Custom makers run their own; the venue runs TLP's.

Request (RFQ) — the venue's question to every maker's program: asset, strike, duration, size. Makers see the request, never who sent it.

TLP — an Earn mode: one deposit makes markets on the listed assets (largest first, at least $250 each); the venue's program answers at the oracle venue's bid and ask.

Writer of record — the maker who wrote your option. Every close settles against it, at the market's best closing price.

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