Glossary

Use this page to quickly look up protocol terms.

Term	Definition
Add Margin	Add capital to a position’s margin.
Auto-deleveraging (ADL)	A last-resort mechanism that reduces positions on the opposite side of the market to offset losses from liquidations.
Cancel an Order	Withdraw an unfilled order before execution.
Close a Position	Offset an existing position entirely, reducing exposure to zero and realizing PnL.
Closed Position	A position that has been fully offset and realized; no longer open.
Eligible open interest	Open interest that came from no-rush order fills. Only eligible open interest earns rebates, and each market’s average eligible open interest sets its daily base trade fee. Size added to a position with a standard order is not eligible.
Entry Price	The average execution price at which a position was opened.
Executable long / short depth	Maximum notional that can be bought (long) or sold (short) immediately: the sum of notionals of all currently executable orders.
Execution price	The actual price at which an order is filled.
Execution price threshold	The worst acceptable fill price. No-rush orders are unrestricted and do not use a threshold.
Exit Price	The average execution price at which a position was closed.
Fill an Order	Match an order against liquidity, resulting in a fill at the execution price.
Funding rate	Not applicable on Fairground: we don’t have funding rates because we don’t use a separate price from the oracle price. We may have other types of fees, but they are not called a funding rate.
Healthy Position	A position where margin > maintenance margin.
Impact fee	A fee on standard orders, designed to feel like spread on a CLOB. Its rate is quoted from external order-book depth for the total standard size filled on that side in a matching cycle. When a standard order fills against a no-rush order, the standard order pays and the no-rush order receives it. When two standard orders match, both pay.
Increase (Position) Size	Increase a position’s size (typically via an increase order).
Initial Margin	Collateral locked when the position is opened. Initial Margin = Value / Leverage.
Insurance Fund	Buffer fund absorbing losses from liquidations before ADL triggers.
Isolated margin / cross-position margin	Not applicable on Fairground: we only offer isolated margin, so we don’t distinguish.
Leverage	A multiplier that allows controlling a larger position than deposited collateral. Leverage is the ratio of initial exposure to initial margin (e.g., 10x, 50x).
Liquidatable Position	A position that can be liquidated: (2/3) × maintenance margin ≤ position margin < maintenance margin.
Liquidation	Forced closure of a position when margin is at risk of not covering losses.
Liquidation Price	The estimated price at which liquidation will occur: the price below which (or above which for shorts) the position becomes liquidatable.
Long / short	Going long means buying to profit if price rises. Going short means selling to profit if price falls.
Long / short Open Interest	Total value (notional) of all open long positions (long OI) or all open short positions (short OI).
Maintenance Margin	The minimum margin that must be maintained to keep a position open; falling below this level triggers liquidation. Equals ½ of the initial margin required at max leverage at the current oracle price (Notional ÷ (2 × Max Leverage)).
Maker	A trader who provides liquidity with no-rush orders. Open interest that fills from no-rush orders is eligible for rebates.
Market	A specific perp contract for a given underlying asset (e.g. BTC-USD).
Mark Price vs. Index Price	Not applicable on Fairground: we only have the oracle price (no separate mark/index prices).
Net Contributions	How much a trader has put into a position. Initialized to Initial Margin; decreases when margin is removed and increases when margin is added.
No-rush order	An order designated to provide liquidity. No-rush orders have no execution price threshold, do not trigger matching, fill only after other orders, and never fill against other no-rush orders.
Open a Position	Enter into a new exposure: from 0 exposure to x exposure (x can be positive or negative).
Open Interest	Long open interest + short open interest.
Open Position	A live position that has not been fully closed.
Oracle price	The latest market price of the underlying asset on spot markets provided by the oracle.
Order	Instruction to buy or sell a perp contract under specific conditions. An order may optionally be designated as a no-rush order.
Order Book	Fairground does not match orders through an order book: every fill happens at the oracle price. Unfilled orders rest until they become executable, and the GetOrderBook API endpoint returns simulated depth of those resting orders.
(Order) Original Size	The original size of an order when the user first created it. It may differ from current size if the order was partially filled.
Order Size	The size specified by an order. In the app you can enter it in USDC (notional) or in units of the underlying asset (e.g. 50 JPY) using the toggle in the size field.
Perp	A perpetual futures contract with no expiry, tracking an underlying asset’s price over time.
Place an Order	Submit a new order to the system; it becomes an unfilled order.
PnL	Profit and Loss from a trade. For longs: PnL = (Exit Price − Entry Price) × Position Size. For shorts: PnL = (Entry Price − Exit Price) × Position Size. For unrealized PnL, use current spot/oracle price instead of Exit Price.
Position	Exposure held after orders are filled.
Position Margin	Collateral locked to support a position. Position Margin = Net Contributions + System PnL.
Position Size	The quantity of the underlying asset the position represents (e.g. 50 JPY).
Position Value (USD)	The notional a position controls: value = price × size.
Realized / Unrealized PnL	PnL is realized when a position closes or is modified to reduce exposure. PnL is unrealized when a position is open.
Reduce-only Order	An order that can only reduce an existing position, decreasing exposure.
Reduce (Position) Size	Reduce a position’s size (typically via a reduce-only order).
Remove Margin	Remove funds from a position’s margin.
ROE	Return on Equity (percentage): PnL / margin × 100%.
Seized Position	A position where position margin < (2/3) × maintenance margin; remaining margin is treated as forfeit to the Insurance Fund on close.
Side	The direction of a trade: long or short.
Slippage	Difference between expected and actual execution price.
Standard order	Any order that is not a no-rush order. Standard orders trigger matching, fill in the first matching stage, and pay the impact fee.
Toxic Position	Any position that is not healthy. Toxic = liquidatable + seized + underwater.
Trader Vault	Holds traders’ margin for all open positions for a market.
Trigger price	The price at which a take profit or stop loss order becomes executable. Once triggered, it fills at the oracle price.
Underlying Asset	The base asset the perp tracks (e.g. BTC for BTC-USD).
Underwater Position	A position where position margin < 0 (losses exceed margin); the Insurance Fund backstops the deficit.
Unfilled Order	An order (or part of it) that has not yet been executed.
Unfilled order depth	Sum of all notionals of unfilled orders (whether executable or not).
USD	U.S. Dollar, used as the quote currency.
Volume	Total traded notional over a period of time.

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