The matching engine, documented.

Overview

Trillions of dollars of stocks, ETFs and real-world assets are moving onchain, and most of them land in automated market makers built for memecoins, priced by bonding curves that know nothing about the asset they quote.

A real stock has never traded that way. Every serious equity market on earth runs on the same machine: a matching engine with a central limit orderbook, price-time priority and real settlement. Tokenizing a share does not change what a share needs. It still needs a market, not a curve.

Architecture

Three parts, each with one job:

• The book. Every resting bid and ask, held in memory so matching runs at hardware speed.
• The sequencer. Assigns each incoming order a position in a single, ordered log.
• The settlement contract. Holds collateral and tokenized shares, and moves balances only against matches backed by your signature.

sign (wallet, offchain, free)
   -> sequencer   assigns order N in the log
   -> orderbook   matches by price, then time
   -> contract    moves balances onchain, T+0
   -> public log  every order, in sequence, replayable

Matching runs off the chain because that is the only place it is fast enough. Settlement runs on the chain because that is the only place it is final.

Orders

An order is not a transaction. It is a message you sign: market, side, price, size. Your wallet signs it offchain, so placing costs no gas and touches no block. Place a hundred orders, cancel them all, and you have spent nothing.

{
  "market":  "AAPL-USD",
  "side":    "buy",
  "price":   "182.45",
  "size":    "12",
  "expiry":  1767225600,
  "nonce":   4417
}

Only a fill ever reaches the chain. An unmatched order lives in the book and costs nothing to keep or withdraw. Cancellation is likewise a signed message, not a transaction.

Matching

One rule, the same one NYSE and Nasdaq run on: price, then time. Best price is filled first. At equal price, whoever arrived first is filled first.

There is no auction to game, no privileged sequencer lane, and no searcher paying to jump the queue.

Settlement

The instant two orders match, the engine hands the batch to the settlement contract and the contract moves balances onchain. Same breath as the trade: T+0.

• No clearing window.
• Nothing sitting in "pending".
• No overnight counterparty risk.

Proof of sequence

Every order the engine sees, in the exact sequence it saw them, is written to a public log. You do not have to believe the matching was fair. You can replay it and prove it.

How to verify a fill

• Pull the sequencer log for the period you care about.
• Replay it through the open-source matching logic.
• Compare the resulting fills against settlement events onchain.

If the replay disagrees with the chain, the engine is wrong and you can show it. Fairness you can audit is the only kind worth having.

Custody & security

Non-custodial by design

Your funds never touch us. Collateral and tokenized shares sit in a contract onchain under one rule: nothing moves unless you signed for it. We custody nothing.

Open source, end to end

The orderbook, the sequencer and the settlement contract are public. Anyone can read the matching rules and replay the log against them.

Bug bounty

Break the engine and get paid for it. Rewards go to anyone who can demonstrate that matching or settlement is unfair, or that funds can move without a valid signature. Report via GitHub security advisories.

Network

Pool settles on Robinhood Chain, an EVM network built for onchain finance and tokenized real-world assets.

Any EVM-compatible wallet works for signing orders.

Fees

• Signing and cancelling orders: free. No gas, no block.
• Filled volume: maker and taker priced separately, charged only on execution.
• Gas: applies to deposits, withdrawals and settlement.

Fee parameters are published onchain and readable by anyone.

Brand kit

Use the mark on dark backgrounds. Do not recolour it, stretch it, or place it on busy imagery.

Assets: mark (SVG) · lockup (SVG) · mark (PNG)

Risk disclosure

Trading involves risk, including loss of principal. Tokenized equities carry the market risk of the underlying asset plus risks specific to onchain systems.

• Market risk. Prices move. Limit orders may go unfilled; stops may fill at worse prices in fast markets.
• Smart contract risk. Contracts can contain defects. Open source and bounties reduce this risk; they do not remove it.
• Liquidity risk. A thin book can mean poor execution or no execution.
• Availability risk. The matching engine is offchain infrastructure and can be interrupted. Your assets remain in the settlement contract regardless.
• Regulatory risk. Rules for tokenized securities differ by jurisdiction and can change.

Execution figures shown on this site are measured from the public sequencer log and vary with book depth and volatility. They describe recent performance and are not a guarantee of future fills. Nothing here is investment advice. Assets held in the settlement contract are not insured by any government agency or private insurer.

Legal

Questions? Reach us on @poolproto or open an issue on GitHub.