Introduction to Speed Markets

Positional Markets get kicked into overdrive with the fast-paced excitement of Speed Markets! Speed Markets allow users to purchase UP or DOWN positions in positional markets built on short time frames and strike prices based on a snapshot of the current price. This new product under the Thales umbrella is the result of TIP-149 and the communities' need for speed!

Speed Markets are currently available on:

Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Base and ZkSync

How Speed Markets work

Typical Positional and Ranged Markets close for positioning when the maturity date/time is less than 24 hours away due to protocol risk management, but some traders couldn't wait on the sidelines for that long. To satisfy the community Thales developed Speed Markets to work with nearly instantaneous pricing data, made possible with the use of Pyth Benchmarks.

Traders choose an asset, direction (UP or DOWN) and strike time for that asset based on the trader's predicted price movement from the asset's current price. Once a trader submits a transaction to purchase a position, a snapshot of the asset's current price is taken to define the strike price. Because the strike price is always taken from the current price of an asset at the time of a buy, all positions will have 50:50 implied probabilities. This means that a winning trader will see a 2x payout (minus the quoted LP fee and a fixed 2% Safebox fee) on a single winning position.

Since every position has equal 50:50 odds regardless of any variable, there is no need for algorithmic pricing based on Implied Volatility index. This makes Speed Markets product more immutable, decentralized and lightweight.

Pyth Benchmark on-demand oracles provide historically queryable prices that can be used to validate trades in near real-time, an important factor for risk management of intraday markets such as Speed Markets. Every second, Pyth Benchmark price feeds are updated using source data from reputable third-party data publishers that can be easily verified from the Pythnet blockchain.

In the future, Thales plans to further develop this product and to couple it with the consecutive round format of Thales Royale to facilitate sequential epochs. Once this feature is deployed it will give traders the ability to compound a winning position into the next epoch(s) automatically.

Parameters for Speed Markets

The parameters for Speed Markets will be maintained via the Governance process. Configuration TIPs for considerations like opening the SpeedMarketAMM up for LPing will need to be submitted by the community and voted in by the Thales Council. Initial funding will be provided by the TreasuryDAO, but future LPing could take it's place to provide liquidity for Speed Markets.

• Volume generated on Speed Markets will count towards gamified staking rewards.

• Speed Markets offer a minimum epoch of 15 minutes, but the goal is to offer epochs as short at 5 minutes in the future.

• The maximum time to maturity will be 24 hours.

• ETH and BTC will be the supported assets, with expansion to more assets planned in the future.

• Speed Markets will include an LP fee that changes depending of a Strike Time and a protocol fee of 2%.

Strike Time	LP fee
10 min - 14 min 59s	15%
15 min - 59 min 59 sec	13%
60 min - 119 min 59 sec	12%
120 min - 24 h	10%

• The minimum buy-in will be 5 USD, with a maximum of 200 USD (but both can be changed).

• The AMM Risk Cap per Asset per Day will begin at 5000 USD.

Positions can be purchased using the several forms of collateral, with the minimum amount of each adjusted to equal 5 USDC. The following forms of collateral are accepted:

Speed Markets on Optimism, Arbitrum and Base also support Multicollateral offramping, meaning you can choose the form of collateral you'd like to receive when claiming a winning position.

Eventually, Speed Markets will allow traders to string together several speed markets (like a parlay) for a leveraged payout. For example, if a trader is able to select the correct direction for 5 epochs in a row, their winnings would approach 32x (2x + 2x + 2x + 2x + 2x) of their initial buy-in.

Other features, such as supporting referral bonuses or multi-collateral purchasing can also be added via future TIPs.