Routes, reference prices and execution
Lots distinguishes the amount a basket owes in tokens, its indicative reference value and what a market can execute. These quantities answer different questions.
Three kinds of information
| Information | Question answered | Does it guarantee a sale? |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed recipe | What token quantities does one healthy basket receipt redeem for? | No market sale is involved |
| Reference value | What are those quantities worth at stated price references? | No |
| Executable route quote | What can this transaction receive within its bounds and expiry? | Only if the transaction executes successfully |
The basket's reference value is the sum of each fixed component quantity multiplied by its validated token-denominated price. A reference feed is not an order book and cannot supply missing liquidity.
Prices and corporate-action units
The initial standard recipe and launch price require valid references. The PRD calls for approved onchain stock-token sources, correct units, reference timestamps and corporate-action handling.
Robinhood's API documentation distinguishes raw underlying-equity REST prices from multiplier-adjusted onchain prices. Applying a corporate-action multiplier twice would misvalue a basket. The exact deployed feed, decimals and adapter must be verified; a familiar ticker is not a unit specification. Robinhood Stock Token APIs.
This changes valuation, not Lots' fixed raw component quantities. Unresolved corporate actions or invalid units cannot be ignored to keep creation available.
Stale feeds and trading hours
There is no separate stock-exchange-hours gate in the approved Lots design. Price-dependent creation requires a valid source. If the primary oracle is stale outside its update window, a validated market time-weighted average price (TWAP) may substitute only after source identity, history, freshness, quote conversion, depth, deviation and manipulation checks.
If neither source is valid, creation waits. A fallback does not bypass issuer restrictions, chain impairment or unresolved units. Robinhood documents stock-feed update windows and corporate-action pauses in its oracle guide. Numerical freshness, history and depth thresholds are still release-validation work; no arbitrary thresholds are introduced here.
A stale dollar reference alone does not stop a healthy basket mint/redemption or an otherwise valid direct token swap. The UI must identify stale or missing USD data rather than invent a current value.
Liquidity is checked in both directions
Asset admission requires verified executable buy and sell depth, including every component of a reused basket. Failing depth checks suspends affected new launches. It does not rewrite existing recipes or necessarily stop a currently executable token swap.
A fully backed basket can contain a transferable component with no current liquid market. In-kind redemption can still work; ETH liquidation can fail. NAV, TVL and locked LP value cannot substitute for checking actual required trades.
Funded basket/ETH markets and market-maker programmes are outside MVP. An ETH route must not assume a direct market for the basket exists.
Complete settlement
An ETH buy for a basket market acquires every component, deposits them, mints the basket and buys the meme. An ETH sale reverses the relevant stages and sells every component. A direct-stock route omits the vault.
The signed transaction binds its chain, assets, amount bounds, expiry, final recipient, refund recipient and launch/recipe identity. It uses approved adapters and authenticated callbacks. Required legs settle together; a failure reverts the route.
Slippage protection applies to the complete route after quoted fees and impact, not only the first swap. Changing the output or accepting partial settlement requires a new explicit user choice. ETH outputs finish as native ETH even where wrapped ETH or a stablecoin appears internally.
For the simplest basket interaction, healthy in-kind operations use already-held tokens and do not need a stock sale or dollar feed.