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Oracle

The oracle is the external price reference each market uses for funding, mark price (details), liquidations, and TP/SL triggers. Different asset classes use different oracle architectures because the underlying markets work differently.

Two oracle paths

Asset classSourceCadenceBehavior during quiet periods
Real estateParcl Labs indexOnce daily at 09:05 ETSingle update per day; price between updates is the last published value
CommoditiesFront-month futures contract on ICE / COMEX / CMESub-minute when venue openDrifts toward the on-chain orderbook signal when the underlying venue is closed

Why they differ

Real estate indices are structurally daily. The underlying data is a rolling window of transaction prices computed by Parcl Labs; there is no intraday price discovery for housing. The oracle publishes once per day; between updates, the chain holds the last value.

Commodities track venues with regular trading sessions. When those venues are open, the oracle reflects upstream price activity. When the venues close (weekends, holidays, overnight breaks), the oracle stays current via an on-chain orderbook signal so the chain never reports a frozen Index price.

What you'll see in the trading UI

  • Index — the oracle price for the current market. Updates per the cadence above.
  • Mark — the price the matching engine uses for funding, margin checks, and triggers. Computed from the oracle plus other on-chain signals; see mark price.
  • No "Venue closed" badge. The trading UI does not surface upstream venue session state — the perp trades 24/7 regardless of when the reference venue is open.

What's enforced where

  • Oracle prices are submitted as signed UpdateOraclePrice transactions from a single authority key. Validators verify the signature and reject anything else.
  • The validator enforces per-update sanity (price band, monotonicity), so a single bad submission can't move the on-chain oracle arbitrarily.
  • Mark price (which is what triggers and liquidations key off) is computed from the oracle on every block. See mark price for the formula per asset class.

See also