AMM & Pool Types

Pools on each network

These pool mechanics apply on BNB Chain, Robinhood Chain, Base, Ethereum and Arc. Pools, gauges, assets and fee settings belong to the selected network. BNB examples below describe the hub; read the selected pool for its current local configuration. Network availability.

Gauge-staked LPs earn TOPAZ on BNB and xTOPAZ on live spokes. Unstaked liquidity earns trading fees; each unit earns fees or emissions. V2 LP tokens can be partially staked, so a position can have separate staked and unstaked balances and prior rewards to claim. Concentrated NFTs stake as whole positions. Multichain emissions.

What an AMM actually is

An automated market maker is a pair of token vaults priced by a formula instead of a human order book. Instead of matching a buyer with a seller, a swap reads the current vault balances, applies the curve, and tells you the price you get for whatever amount you put in. The curve is the entire market — there's no off-chain counterparty.

Unstaked LPs collect their share of trading fees. LPs who stake in a gauge earn emissions instead. More available liquidity generally reduces price impact for a trade of a given size.

Volatile pools — constant product (x · y = k)

The original Uniswap V2 curve and Topaz's default for uncorrelated pairs. The product of the two vault balances stays constant on every swap (ignoring fees). If a pool holds 100 ETH and 200,000 USDC, then x · y = 20,000,000. Anyone removing 1 ETH must deposit enough USDC to keep that product the same — that's what sets the price.

• ✓Works for any two tokens, regardless of price relationship.
• ✓Predictable: the curve is well-understood and stress-tested across DeFi.
• ✓Higher slippage on large trades — the price moves along a hyperbola.
• ✓LPs feel impermanent loss when prices diverge from the entry ratio.

On Topaz, volatile v2 pools default to a 0.30% swap fee. The fee manager can set a custom rate per pool, up to a 3% maximum.

Stable pools — x³y + y³x ≥ k

For pairs that are supposed to trade at roughly the same price (USDT/USDC, ETH/stETH, BTC/WBTC), the constant-product curve is inefficient — most of the capital sits at prices that will never trade. Topaz's stable pool uses a flatter curve, the same one Solidly and Velodrome introduced: the invariant is x³y + y³x ≥ k.

This curve is much flatter around the 1:1 region and only steepens sharply when prices diverge. The result is low slippage even on large stablecoin swaps, while still pricing meaningfully if a peg breaks.

• ✓Designed for correlated assets — picking stable for an uncorrelated pair would price terribly.
• ✓Default 0.05% swap fee, customizable per pool by the fee manager up to 3%.
• ✓Slightly larger rounding error in K than constant-product — negligible for users, noted here for integrators who track LP token value via K.

Slipstream — concentrated liquidity

Concentrated-liquidity pools let an LP target a specific price range instead of supplying across all possible prices. A USDT/USDC LP who knows the price will almost never leave $0.99 – $1.01 can concentrate all their capital there, earning the fees of a much larger v2 position with a fraction of the dollars at risk.

Topaz's concentrated-liquidity engine is called Slipstream. It is a fork of Aerodrome Slipstream, which itself adapts the Uniswap V3 tick-and-range design. Positions are represented as NFTs, fees accrue per-position, and ranges are bounded by ticks that must align to a pool-specific tick spacing.

See the Concentrated Liquidity primer for ticks, range strategy, and active vs out-of-range positions, or Concentrated Positions for the step-by-step LP flow.

When to pick which

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