Silo Documentation

Choose how liquidity behaves

Liquidity shapes turn bin placement into understandable strategies. Each shape expresses where capital should be available and how the position may change as the market moves.

Spot

Distributes liquidity evenly through a selected range for broad, consistent coverage.

Curve

Concentrates more liquidity near the current price to emphasize capital efficiency and potential fee generation.

Bid

Places stablecoin liquidity below the current price. USDG converts into the tokenized asset if sellers trade through those bins.

Ask

Places tokenized asset liquidity above the current price. The asset converts into USDG if buyers trade through those bins.

Custom

Lets advanced LPs design a manual distribution with more control and more range-management responsibility.

The five shapes are not five products at different risk levels. They are five ways of answering one question: at which prices are you willing to own the base asset, and at which prices would you rather hold the quote asset instead. Every shape is a distribution of that willingness across the price space. Spot spreads it evenly, curve concentrates it near the current price, and bid and ask place it entirely on one side.

Single-sided liquidity

An LP does not always need both assets. A user with only USDG can provide buy-side liquidity below the market. A user holding only a Stock Token or another RWA can provide sell-side liquidity above the market.

USDG onlyAccumulate below market$198 · $196 · $194 · $192

USDG may convert into NVDA as sellers trade into the position.

NVDA onlyDistribute above market$202 · $204 · $206 · $208

NVDA may convert into USDG as buyers trade into the position.

Single-sided positions have a useful property: they express an intention that would otherwise require somebody to watch the market. An LP who would buy the asset at $194 can place USDG in the bins beneath the market and let the position accumulate if sellers arrive, earning fees whether or not it ever fills. An LP who would sell at $208 can place the asset above and let buyers take it. In both cases the capital does something useful while it waits, which a resting order does not.

The matching risk is that a single-sided position fills exactly when the LP is most likely to regret it. Buy-side liquidity converts into the asset while the price is falling, and sell-side liquidity converts into the quote asset while the price is rising. Neither is a malfunction and neither is avoidable, but an LP who places bid liquidity at prices they would not genuinely want to buy at has written a commitment they did not mean to make.

Choosing a shape

The shapes are not ranked. Each one expresses an intent about where the market will trade and what the LP is willing to hold if it does.

Broad coverageSpot: even placement across a range the LP expects the market to stay inside.
Fee focusCurve: weight near the current price, accepting more frequent conversion.
AccumulateBid: stablecoin liquidity below the market, converting into the asset if sellers arrive.
DistributeAsk: asset liquidity above the market, converting into the quote asset if buyers arrive.
Full controlCustom: a manual distribution, with the range management that implies.

Every shape is a prediction

A liquidity shape encodes a view about where the market will trade and what the LP is willing to hold if it goes somewhere else. Reading the shapes as predictions makes the choice easier than comparing them as products.

SpotThe market will stay inside this range, and no part of it deserves more capital than another.
CurveThe market will stay near where it is now, and capital is worth concentrating there.
BidThe asset is worth accumulating below the current price, and holding it is an acceptable outcome.
AskThe asset is worth selling above the current price, and holding the quote asset is an acceptable outcome.
CustomThe LP has a specific view that none of the presets expresses.

If none of those statements is true for a given market, the honest conclusion is that there is no view to express yet, not that a shape should be chosen anyway.

Width against attention

Concentration and maintenance trade against each other directly. Where to sit on that trade depends less on the asset than on how often the LP intends to look at the position.

ConcentratedMore fees while active±1% around the market

Earns well when the market cooperates, leaves range quickly when it does not, and needs frequent attention.

WideFewer decisions±15% around the market

Earns less per unit of capital, but stays active through ordinary moves and can be left alone for longer.

An LP who cannot watch a position through a volatile session should size the range for the move they will not be present for, rather than for the fees available if nothing happens.

When a range stops earning

A position earns fees only while the market trades inside it. When price moves beyond the range, the position stops earning and holds whichever asset the last crossing left it with. Nothing is lost automatically at that point, but nothing accrues either until the market returns or the LP repositions.

  • In rangeLiquidity is available at the current price and can earn fees.
  • Out of range, belowThe position holds the base asset and waits for the market to trade back up.
  • Out of range, aboveThe position holds the quote asset and waits for the market to trade back down.

What changes as the market moves

A shape is chosen once, but its behavior changes as price travels through it. These are the states a position passes through, and what each means for fees and composition.

  • Market inside the rangeFees accrue, and composition shifts continuously as trades cross bins.
  • Market at the range edgeThe position is nearly all one asset, and one more move ends fee accrual.
  • Market outside the rangeNo fees accrue. The position holds a single asset and waits.
  • Market returnsFees resume, and the conversion that happened on the way out begins to reverse.

That last state is why leaving a position out of range is a decision rather than a failure. A market trading back through the range restores both fee income and composition, while closing at the extreme settles the conversion instead.

Deciding what to do at that point is the hardest recurring judgment in providing liquidity, and it has no general answer. Closing an out-of-range position settles whatever conversion the market performed, turning a temporary composition into a permanent one. Leaving it open costs nothing directly but earns nothing either, and the capital stays committed. Repositioning starts earning again at the new price, but does so by settling the old position first. Each of the three is right under a different belief about where the market goes next, which is why the interface presents the state rather than a recommendation.

Silo documentation

The liquidity layer for tokenized assets.