Glossary

Each term is defined the way these docs use it. Where a word carries a broader meaning in finance or in the hobby, the narrower sense below is the one that applies.

Archive. The public, timestamped record of every level an index has published, along with the data needed to recompute it. Together with the commitments, it lets anyone check an index independently (Data and API).

Auto-deleveraging. A market's final backstop: if a liquidation leaves a loss larger than the insurance fund covers, profitable positions on the opposite side are reduced to close the gap. It stays inside that one market.

Band. The range around the index price inside which the matching engine clamps the mark price, keeping each market anchored to its index. Its width is published with the market parameters.

Base level. The value an index is rebased to at its starting point, so every later level reads as movement since that start. On the Quanta board every index starts at $1.00 in May 2004, a raw level of 1,000.

Bridge. A service that moves tokens between chains. Deposits to the DEX arrive as USDC on Solana from the wallet you connect, so funds held on another chain are bridged to Solana as USDC first (Getting started).

Burn. To destroy tokens for good, which shrinks the supply. Part of protocol revenue buys the Quanta token on the open market and burns it (The Quanta token).

Category. The full class of graded collectibles an index tracks, graded Pokémon cards for example. It is the unit Quanta prices.

Commitment. A Merkle root of an index's inputs, published at regular intervals, so the data behind any level cannot be altered afterwards without it showing.

Constituent. One specific card, at one specific grade, from one specific grader, included in an index because it trades often enough. The same card in two grades counts as two constituents.

Cross margin. A margin model where all positions share one pool, so gains on one support the others and a loss on one draws on all of them. Quanta's DEX uses isolated margin.

DEX. Quanta's decentralized exchange: perpetual markets on Quanta indexes, on Solana, with USDC collateral and self-custody of funds.

Dictionary. The mapping from each vaulted card's token to its grader, grade, set and number. It is resolved once and frozen, so a later change at the source cannot alter the index.

Epoch. The period a single commitment covers. When it ends, a Merkle root of the inputs and dictionary is published.

Exposure. What a position's value moves with. Owning a card gives exposure to that card; a position on a Quanta market gives exposure to the price of a whole category, without owning any card.

Free balance. The part of your trading account not assigned as margin to any position. You can withdraw it at any time, and no loss on a position can reach it.

Funding. A periodic payment between longs and shorts, sized by the gap between the market and the index. It is positive when the market trades above the index (longs pay shorts) and negative when it trades below. Funding is not a fee, and none of it goes to Quanta (Funding).

Gas. The fee a blockchain charges to process a transaction, also called the network fee. On Solana it is paid in SOL. A deposit to the DEX also pays, in SOL, the fee for the message that carries it to the trading infrastructure. Neither fee goes to Quanta.

Grade. A card's condition as assessed by a grading company, on that company's own scale. Together with the grader, it is part of what defines a constituent.

Graded card. A card that a grading company has authenticated, assessed and sealed in a labelled holder. It is the unit of the on-chain sales record Quanta reads.

Grader. A company that authenticates and grades cards: PSA, BGS (Beckett), CGC, SGC and others. Each constituent is identified by its grader.

Hedge. A position that offsets a risk you already hold. A collector with graded Pokémon can short PKMN, so a fall in the category is offset by a gain on the position. It covers the category as a whole.

Index. A single number that tracks the price of a whole category of graded collectibles, built by Quanta from real sales of its constituents. Indexes are published continuously, and a subset of them is tradable on the DEX.

Index board. The page on the Quanta site that shows 44 collectible indexes, refreshed daily, with levels and full history from Card Ladder sales data. Each index is shown in dollars, rebased to $1.00 in May 2004.

Index price. The Quanta index as delivered to the DEX by Quanta's oracle. One of the three prices shown on a market page.

Initial margin. The margin a position needs when it opens, set by its size and leverage.

Insurance fund. A dedicated pool for each market, funded by Quanta, that absorbs any loss beyond a liquidated position's margin.

Isolated margin. The margin model on Quanta's DEX: each position has its own margin, a loss on one never touches another position or the free balance, and a position's loss is capped at its margin (Margin, leverage and liquidation).

Last price. The price of the latest trade on the orderbook. Positions are valued against the mark price, not this one.

Launchpad. A platform where a new token is launched and first traded.

Level. The current value of an index. The board shows it in dollars with two decimals; the public feed returns raw points, where 1,000 equals $1.00.

Leverage. The ratio of a position's size to its margin, up to 20x on Quanta's DEX. At 20x, a 2% move in the index is a 40% move on the margin, in either direction.

Limit order. An order to buy or sell at a set price or better. It rests in the book until another order matches it. A new market opens with limit orders only, so its first prices come from resting orders.

Liquidation. The automatic closing of a position once the mark price brings its margin down to the maintenance level. The close executes at the prices the market allows, the loss stops at the position's margin, and any shortfall beyond that is covered by the insurance fund.

Liquidity pool. A pool of tokens that buyers and sellers trade against, rather than trading with each other directly. The deeper the pool, the less a large trade moves the price. Taxes on the Quanta token's trades go into its pool.

Long. A position that gains when the index rises and loses when it falls.

Maintenance margin. The minimum margin a position must keep to stay open. Below it, the position is liquidated.

Maker. The side of a fill whose limit order was already resting in the book. It pays the maker fee.

Margin. The USDC you assign to a position to cover its losses, in the same currency you deposit. On Quanta's DEX it caps what that position can lose. Initial margin and maintenance margin are the two thresholds set on it.

Mark price. The price positions are valued and liquidated against. It is calculated from the index price and the orderbook and clamped to the band around the index.

Market maker. A trader who keeps bids and offers resting on both sides of the book so others can fill straight away, earning the spread in return for holding whatever they are filled on.

Market order. An order to buy or sell immediately at the best prices in the book. It pays the taker fee, and a large one moves the price as it fills (see slippage).

Matching engine. The part of the trading infrastructure that matches orders on the book, computes the mark price and clamps it to the band around the index. Deposits, withdrawals and settlement happen on-chain, outside the engine.

Merkle root. A single hash that stands for a large set of data; change anything in the data and the root changes. Quanta's commitments take this form.

Oracle. The system that delivers an index price to the DEX's matching engine at least once a second, from redundant publishers, with median guardrails across sources.

Orderbook. The list of resting bids and offers on a market, matched by price and then time. Quanta markets run on an orderbook rather than on a pool.

Perpetual. A contract that tracks a price and never expires. It stays open as long as it holds its margin, and is kept close to its reference by funding and, on a Quanta market, by the mark price band.

PnL. Profit and loss. Unrealized PnL is what an open position is worth against the current mark price: it moves the margin balance until the position closes. Realized PnL is what closing the position settles into your trading account, in USDC.

Population. The number of copies of a card a grader has graded at each grade. It can move a card's price independently of its category.

Position. An open long or short on a market, with its own direction, size and margin. It exists from the fill that opens it to the fill that closes it.

Premium, discount. The gap between the market price and the index, as a percentage of the index: a premium when the market is above, a discount when it is below. Funding is sized by this number.

Protocol revenue. What Quanta earns from its markets. Part of it buys back and burns the Quanta token, part fills the index treasury that opens new markets, and the rest runs operations (Fee flow).

Published, tradable. Every index that clears the data bar is published, with its live level, history, constituents and specification. A tradable index also has a market on the DEX. Its page looks the same either way.

Quanta token. Quanta's protocol token, on Solana. It is separate from index tickers such as PKMN; exposure to a category comes from a position on the DEX. Taxes on its trades go into its liquidity pool, and part of protocol revenue buys it back and burns it (The Quanta token).

Reduce-only. A protective market state in which only orders that shrink an existing position are accepted. A market enters it when a health check trips, and positions can always close.

RWA. Real-world asset: a physical asset represented on-chain. In Quanta's framing the RWA is the underlying, a vaulted graded card whose sale settles on-chain, and the index is built on it.

Segment. A sub-index of a category, marked with a suffix (PKMN-V for vintage, PKMN-M for modern, PKMN-U for ultra modern), created when the category is deep enough to split.

Self-custody. Funds settle on-chain and stay under your own wallet's control. Quanta never holds them and cannot freeze or seize them.

Short. A position that gains when the index falls and loses when it rises.

Slab. The sealed, labelled holder of a graded card, and collectors' shorthand for the graded card itself.

Slippage. How far a large order moves the price as it works through the book. It is a cost paid to the traders on the other side of the fill, not a fee.

SOL. The Solana network's native token. Solana network fees are paid in it, so a wallet needs a little SOL to make a deposit.

Solana. The public blockchain Quanta's DEX runs on. Deposits come in as USDC from a Solana wallet, and network fees are paid in SOL.

Specification. The document published with each index: its formula, thresholds, parameters, constituent list and data sources, versioned from then on.

Spread. The gap between the best bid and the best ask on the book. It is shown on the market page before you trade, it is a cost paid to the other side rather than a fee, and none of it goes to Quanta.

Stablecoin. A token designed to hold the value of a currency, one dollar per token in the case of a dollar stablecoin. USDC is the dollar stablecoin the DEX accepts as collateral and keeps its books in.

Stake. To lock tokens into a protocol for a period, usually in return for a share of what it earns. A share of fees for holders who stake the Quanta token is next on the token's path (The Quanta token).

Taker. The side of a fill whose order matched against orders already in the book. It pays the taker fee.

Tax. A charge taken on each trade of a token. The Quanta token carries a tax on every buy and every sell, and that tax goes into its liquidity pool.

Ticker. The short uppercase symbol of an index: PKMN, MTG, YGO, BSBL and the rest of the board.

Trading account. Your balance on the DEX while you trade, in USDC, split between the margin on your open positions and the free balance. It stays in self-custody: deposits move USDC in from your wallet and withdrawals send USDC back to it (Getting started).

USDC. A dollar stablecoin. It is what you deposit on the DEX from a Solana wallet and the currency the trading account keeps its books in: margin, profit and loss, fees and funding are all counted and settled in USDC, with nothing converted along the way.

Vault. A professional, insured facility that holds graded cards, each one represented by a token carrying its details. Sales of vaulted cards settle on-chain, and that public record is the settlement layer Quanta's index engine reads.

Wallet. The software or device that holds your keys and signs your transactions: a browser extension, a mobile app or a hardware wallet. On the DEX, your Solana wallet is your account, with no separate login.

Sources for this page are listed in Sources.