Perk
PERK DOCS
perk.fund →

Market Creation

Anyone can create a perpetual futures market for any SPL token on Perk. No governance, no whitelist, no approval process. Pay 1 SOL, configure your parameters, and the market goes live immediately.

How It Works

Market creation is a single transaction that calls createMarket. The creator specifies:

ParameterRangeDescription
tokenMintAny SPL tokenThe token this market trades
oracleSourcePyth or PerkOracleWhere the index price comes from
oracleAddressValid feed addressThe specific oracle account
maxLeverage200–2000 (2x–20x)Maximum leverage traders can use
tradingFeeBps3–100 (0.03%–1%)Fee charged on every trade
collateralMintUSDC, USDT, or PYUSDStablecoin used for collateral by all traders
initialK≥ 1e18Initial vAMM depth (liquidity)

These parameters are immutable after creation. The creator cannot modify them. The protocol admin can update the oracle address, trading fee, max leverage, and active status in exceptional circumstances (e.g., oracle migration, safety issues) — this is not standard operation. Choose carefully.

Cost

Market creation costs 1 SOL, paid to the protocol. This covers the on-chain account rent for the Market PDA and serves as a spam deterrent.

Creator Revenue

The market creator earns 10% of all trading fees collected on their market for the lifetime of the market. This is hardcoded into the protocol — no one can change the split.

⚠️ The creator address cannot be updated. Ensure you use a secure wallet — if access is lost, accumulated and future fees are unrecoverable.

Revenue Examples

These are hypothetical examples for illustration only. Actual revenue depends entirely on market volume, which is not guaranteed. Markets may have zero volume.

Daily VolumeTrading FeeDaily RevenueMonthly Revenue
$10,0000.1%$1$30
$100,0000.1%$10$300
$1,000,0000.1%$100$3,000
$10,000,0000.1%$1,000$30,000

Fees accumulate on-chain in creatorClaimableFees. The creator can call claimFees() at any time to withdraw.

Oracle Requirements

The token must have a viable price source:

Pyth (Tier 1)

Use Pyth for tokens that have an established Pyth price feed: SOL, BTC, ETH, and other major tokens. Pyth provides sub-second updates with confidence intervals.

Pass the Pyth price feed account address as oracleAddress.

PerkOracle (Tier 2)

For everything else — memecoins, new launches, long-tail tokens. PerkOracle aggregates prices from Jupiter Price API and Birdeye, posting them on-chain via a cranker.

Requirements:

  • The token must have DEX liquidity visible to Jupiter and Birdeye
  • A PerkOracle price feed must exist for the token (auto-initialized permissionlessly during market creation if needed — the payer covers oracle rent)

See PerkOracle for details on how the oracle system works.

Multiple Markets Per Token

Multiple creators can launch competing markets for the same token. Seeds for the Market PDA are [b"market", token_mint, creator] — each market is uniquely identified by its (token, creator) pair. A single creator cannot create two markets for the same token, but different creators can.

How Competition Works

Each market has its own parameters (leverage limits, trading fee, initial liquidity depth). Traders choose the market with the best combination of:

  • Lower fees — directly reduces cost per trade
  • Higher leverage — more capital efficiency
  • Deeper liquidity (higher initialK) — less slippage on execution
  • Creator reputation — track record of well-configured markets

Markets also compete on visibility. Creators can stake $PERK against their market to boost its ranking in the Perk UI — see $PERK Token for details on creator staking.

Per-Market Isolation

Each market has its own vault, its own vAMM state, and its own risk engine parameters. Positions in one market are completely isolated from positions in another market for the same token. However, all markets for the same token share the same oracle price feed (Pyth or PerkOracle) — see PerkOracle.

Because parameters are immutable, a poorly configured market cannot be fixed — but a better one can be created by another creator.

What Happens After Creation

  1. Market goes live immediately. Traders can deposit and open positions.
  2. The vAMM initializes with the creator's initialK value and the current oracle price as the peg.
  3. Cranker bots pick it up — funding rate cranking, peg updates, liquidation monitoring, and trigger order execution start automatically.
  4. Fees accumulate in the creator's on-chain balance from the first trade.

The creator has no ongoing admin control over the market. They can't pause it, change fees, or modify leverage limits. The market is autonomous.

Choosing Good Parameters

Max Leverage

Higher leverage attracts more traders but increases liquidation risk and potential for bad debt. Conservative markets for volatile tokens should use lower leverage (2x–5x). Established tokens with reliable oracles can handle higher leverage (10x–20x).

Trading Fee

Lower fees attract volume. Higher fees generate more revenue per trade. The protocol minimum is 0.03% and the maximum is 1%.

Typical values:

  • Major tokens (SOL, BTC): 0.05%–0.1%
  • Mid-cap tokens: 0.1%–0.3%
  • Memecoins / high-volatility: 0.3%–1%

Initial K (vAMM Depth)

Higher k means less slippage for traders (deeper liquidity). Lower k means the market moves more on each trade.

The minimum is 1e18. For most markets, start moderate and let the protocol adjust depth as collateral enters the vault.

SDK Example

import { PerkClient, OracleSource } from "perk-protocol";
import BN from "bn.js";

const tx = await perkClient.createMarket(
  tokenMint,           // PublicKey of the SPL token
  oracleAddress,       // Pyth feed or PerkOracle account
  {
    oracleSource: OracleSource.PerkOracle,
    collateralMint: collateralMintAddress, // USDC, USDT, or PYUSD mint
    maxLeverage: 1000,       // 10x
    tradingFeeBps: 30,       // 0.3%
    initialK: new BN("1000000000000000000"), // 1e18
  }
);

See SDK Reference for the full PerkClient API.

← PreviousTradingNext →Architecture