Glossary#

Terminology and definitions for the Seesaw protocol.

A#

Ask#

An offer to sell shares at a specified price. In Seesaw, all asks are stored as YES share asks in the canonical order book.

Atomic#

An operation that either fully succeeds or fully fails, with no partial state changes. All Seesaw instructions are atomic.

B#

Basis Point (bps)#

One hundredth of a percentage point. 100 bps = 1%, 10,000 bps = 100%. Seesaw uses basis points for all price representation.

Best Ask#

The lowest price at which someone is willing to sell. Represented as best_ask_price in the orderbook.

Best Bid#

The highest price at which someone is willing to buy. Represented as best_bid_price in the orderbook.

Bid#

An offer to buy shares at a specified price. In Seesaw, all bids are stored as YES share bids in the canonical order book.

Binary Market#

A market with exactly two possible outcomes. In Seesaw, these are UP (price increased) or DOWN (price decreased).

BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter)#

The virtual machine used by Solana to execute on-chain programs. Seesaw is compiled to BPF.

C#

Canonical Order Book#

The single internal representation of all orders as YES share orders. NO orders are converted to equivalent YES orders.

Collateral#

The USDC (or other settlement currency) locked to back positions. Full collateralization ensures the protocol can always pay out.

Confidence Interval#

The Pyth oracle's uncertainty range for a price. Markets may optionally reject prices with wide confidence intervals.

Crank#

A permissionless operation that advances protocol state, such as creating markets or capturing price snapshots. Anyone can run a crank.

Crossed Book#

An invalid state where the best bid is >= the best ask. Seesaw prevents this condition.

D#

Discriminator#

An 8-byte prefix that identifies the account type. Used to prevent account confusion attacks.

Dual-View Single Engine#

Seesaw's order book design where users see four order types (BuyYes, SellYes, BuyNo, SellNo) but internally all orders are stored as YES orders.

E#

Epoch#

A time window during which a single market operates. Durations are configurable from 60 seconds to 7 days (default: 15 minutes). Each epoch has a unique market ID.

Expiry#

The deadline after which a market can be force-closed if not properly resolved. Set to 7 days after the epoch ends.

F#

Fill#

A trade execution where a taker's order matches against a maker's resting order.

Force Close#

An emergency mechanism to close markets that are stuck. Available after the expiry window.

Full Collateralization#

The requirement that every share is backed by exactly 1 USDC in the vault. This ensures the protocol is always solvent.

G#

Governance#

The mechanism for updating protocol parameters. Currently controlled by protocol authority.

H#

Health Check#

A system to verify the protocol and crank infrastructure are operating correctly.

I#

Idempotency#

The property that an operation can be safely repeated without changing the result. All crank operations are idempotent.

Immediate-Or-Cancel (IOC)#

An order type that executes whatever quantity is possible immediately and cancels the remainder.

Invariant#

A condition that must always be true. Violating an invariant indicates a bug or attack.

K#

Keypair#

A public/private key pair used for signing transactions. Crank operators need a funded keypair.

L#

Limit Order#

An order that specifies a maximum buy price or minimum sell price. Unfilled portions rest on the order book.

Liquidity#

The availability of orders on the book. More liquidity means tighter spreads and better execution.

Locked Shares#

Shares committed to open sell orders. Locked shares cannot be sold again until the order is cancelled or filled.

Locked Collateral#

USDC committed to open buy orders. Locked collateral cannot be used for other orders.

M#

Maker#

A trader whose order rests on the order book before execution. Makers receive rebates.

Maker Rebate#

Deprecated in v2. In v1, makers received a 10 bps (0.1%) rebate on fills. In the current token architecture, makers pay zero fees and receive no rebate. The maker_rebate_bps field is retained at offset 162 in ConfigAccount for layout compatibility but is always 0.

Market#

A prediction market for a single epoch. Each market predicts whether the underlying asset's price will go UP or DOWN within its configured duration.

Market ID#

A unique identifier for a market, calculated as floor(unix_timestamp / duration_seconds). Example: 1892160 (for a 15-minute market).

Matching Engine#

The component that pairs buy and sell orders and executes trades.

Mid Price#

The average of the best bid and best ask. Used to estimate the market's implied probability.

N#

Naked Short#

Selling shares you don't own. Prohibited in Seesaw - you can only sell shares in your position.

NO Share#

A share that pays out 1 USDC if the market resolves to DOWN (price strictly decreased: P_end < P_start). Note: if the price is unchanged, the outcome is UP and YES shares win.

O#

Oracle#

An external data source providing price information. Seesaw uses Pyth Network exclusively.

Order Book#

A data structure that stores all open buy and sell orders, sorted by price.

Order ID#

A unique identifier for an order within a market's orderbook. Monotonically increasing.

Outcome#

The final result of a market: UP or DOWN. Determined by comparing end price to start price.

P#

PDA (Program Derived Address)#

A deterministic address derived from seeds and the program ID. PDAs can sign on behalf of the program.

Permissionless#

Operations that can be executed by anyone without special authorization.

Position#

A user's holdings in a specific market, including YES shares, NO shares, and locked amounts.

PostOnly Order#

An order that will only be placed if it doesn't immediately match. Rejected if it would cross the spread.

Price-Time Priority#

The matching rule where better prices match first, and at equal prices, earlier orders match first.

Protocol#

The Seesaw smart contract and its rules.

Pyth Network#

The decentralized oracle network providing price feeds for Seesaw markets.

Q#

Quantity#

The number of shares in an order or position.

R#

Rent#

Solana's fee for storing data on-chain. Accounts must be rent-exempt (hold enough SOL to cover 2 years of rent).

Resolution#

The process of determining a market's outcome based on the start and end price snapshots.

Resting Order#

An order that is sitting on the order book waiting to be filled.

S#

Sampling Rule#

The rule for which Pyth price to use for snapshots. Seesaw uses "first price with publish_time >= boundary."

Settlement#

The process of paying out winning positions after a market resolves.

Settlement Currency#

The token used for collateral and payouts. Default: USDC.

Snapshot#

A captured oracle price at a specific time boundary (start or end of epoch).

Solvency#

The property that the protocol can always pay all obligations. Ensured by full collateralization.

Spread#

The difference between the best bid and best ask. Tighter spreads indicate better liquidity.

State Machine#

The formal model of market states (PENDING, CREATED, TRADING, SETTLING, RESOLVED, CLOSED) and valid transitions.

T#

Taker#

A trader whose order matches immediately against resting orders. Takers pay fees.

Taker Fee#

A fee charged on the filled portion of taker orders. Default: 200 bps (2.0%), split between the protocol treasury (150 bps / 1.5%) and the market creator (50 bps / 0.5%).

Tick#

The minimum price increment for orders. Default: 100 bps (1%).

Tick Rounding#

The process of rounding order prices to valid tick levels. Bids round down, asks round up.

Trade#

An executed match between a bid and an ask.

Trading Window#

The time period during which orders can be placed. From start snapshot to end of epoch.

Treasury#

The protocol account that holds accumulated fees and funds crank rewards.

U#

UP#

The market outcome when end_price >= start_price. YES shares pay out.

V#

Vault#

The token account holding all collateral for a market. Owned by the market PDA.

W#

Wallet#

A user's Solana account holding their keypair. Used to sign transactions.

Wash Trading#

Trading with yourself to create fake volume. Prevented by self-trade prevention.

Y#

YES Share#

A share that pays out 1 USDC if the market resolves to UP (price increased).

Symbols and Formulas#

Price Conversion#

YES price + NO price = 10,000 bps (100%)

Buy YES @ p     = Bid @ p         (canonical)
Sell YES @ p    = Ask @ p         (canonical)
Buy NO @ q      = Ask @ (10000-q) (canonical)
Sell NO @ q     = Bid @ (10000-q) (canonical)

Market ID#

market_id = floor(unix_timestamp / duration_seconds)
t_start = market_id * duration_seconds
t_end = t_start + duration_seconds

Collateral#

collateral = price_bps * quantity / 10,000

Solvency Invariant#

vault_balance >= max(total_yes_shares, total_no_shares)

Fee Calculations#

taker_fee = ceiling(amount * taker_fee_bps / 10,000)
protocol_fee = ceiling(amount * protocol_fee_bps / 10,000)
creator_fee = taker_fee - protocol_fee

Abbreviations#

Next Steps#

• Review Error Codes for troubleshooting
• See Constants for protocol values