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

A payment to market makers when their orders are filled. Default: 0.1% (10 bps).

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 decreased or stayed the same).

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: 0.3% (30 bps).

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)
maker_rebate = floor(amount * maker_rebate_bps / 10,000)

Abbreviations

Next Steps

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