Glossary

We've walked the whole system end to end - from Maya's first click to the guardrails that protect everyone's money. This last chapter is your reference shelf: a plain-language glossary of every Own-specific term the book used.

Keep this page bookmarked. When two vaults or three exits blur together - and with a layered system like this, a few will - come back here.

Glossary

Every term below was introduced somewhere earlier in the book. One clear sentence each, in alphabetical order.

• Backfill - the market maker's follow-up to every mint: using the buyer's USDC to purchase the real wrapper token and deposit it into the Reserve Vault, so the new eToken ends up matched 1:1 and the LP insurance is freed.
• Claim threshold - the protocol-wide waiting period (48 hours in the launch design) after which an unfilled redeem order can be force-executed; it's the grace window for a fair maker quote to show up first.
• Collateral-Secured Token (CST) - Own's design category: a token that tracks a real asset and is backed by a layered, onchain, code-governed portfolio (reserves plus crypto collateral) rather than one custodian's promise or the holder's own locked margin.
• Collateral vault - a shared pool (one per collateral type, e.g. USDC held as aUSDC) where LPs deposit crypto that insures the system, underwrites the lending market, and earns yield - run by a Vault Manager.
• Concentration cap - a limit on how much of the counted collateral any single vault may contribute, so no one collateral type quietly becomes the whole backing.
• Delta-neutral - a position arranged so its owner doesn't care which way the price moves, because a gain on one side cancels a loss on the other; it's how funding-arbitrage funds hold Own's long leg safely.
• Deviation band - the oracle fence that rejects any new signed price jumping too far from the last accepted one, bounding what a leaked signing key could do.
• Dividend accumulator - the mechanism built into each eToken that passes the underlying asset's income (skimmed from the reserve's surplus) through to the people holding the token.
• eToken - Own's asset token (eTSLA, eSPY, eGOLD...): a standard ERC-20 that tracks a real asset's price and is backed by the two-layer portfolio - it is a CST, not a claim on any one custodian.
• Firm quote - a price a market maker commits to: signed, expiring in seconds, single-use, and bound to this market on this chain; you submit it onchain to settle at exactly that price.
• The flywheel - the compounding loop where borrowing demand lifts LP yield, yield attracts collateral, collateral expands capacity, and capacity admits more borrowing.
• Force-execute - the redemption guarantee: after the claim threshold, an unfilled redeem order's owner settles it themselves against an approved collateral vault at the fresh oracle price - no maker, no permission.
• Funding - the recurring fee one side of a perpetual future pays the other; harvesting it (collect ~13%, pay ~7% to borrow) is the trade that keeps Own's lending book full.
• Golden rule - never raise the 65% solvency cap to make room for demand; when the cap binds, attract more collateral instead.
• Health factor - the live ratio that keeps a borrow position solvent (collateral value x the 80% threshold, over debt); below 1, anyone may liquidate it.
• The Keeper - the permissionless heartbeat robot that pushes fresh signed prices onchain and re-stamps every mark, so trades never settle stale.
• The kink - the bend in the borrow-rate curve at 80% lending utilization: gentle below (cheap borrowing fills the book), steep above (the rate spike that forces deleveraging).
• Liquidity Providers (LPs) - depositors who fill the collateral vaults, earn the three-layer yield (native + lending premium + flow share), and knowingly carry first-loss risk on the unreserved residual.
• The loop - minting an eToken, borrowing USDC against it at 70% loan-to-value, minting more, and repeating - up to roughly 3.3x leveraged exposure from one stake.
• Mark - the protocol's cached working price for an asset or collateral, refreshed from signed oracle prices (never trade prices) and required to be fresh before any new risk can open.
• Market maker - a registered dealer that answers RFQs with firm quotes, earns the spread, and keeps the reserves backfilled; anyone can also make markets permissionlessly through PSM fills.
• Mint / redeem - creating a new eToken by paying in (mint), or handing it back to exit (redeem); the two heartbeat actions of the whole system.
• Net exposure - the protocol's one solvency number: for each asset, the value of tokens outstanding minus its reserve (never below zero), summed - and required to stay at or below 65% of the LP collateral pool.
• Perp (perpetual future) - an exchange contract tracking an asset's price with no expiry; its funding fee is the income the arbitrage funds come to capture.
• PSM (peg-stability module) - the protocol's converter: wrapper tokens in, eTokens out - and back - at an oracle-derived ratio, fee-free and permissionless; it's the in-kind exit, the arbitrage anchor, and the maker-free trading lane.
• Ratio-jump guard - the PSM's fence: a conversion-ratio move beyond 1.5% in one step freezes that wrapper until an operator acknowledges the corporate action behind it.
• Reserve Vault - the protocol-owned pool holding wrapper tokens 1:1 behind one asset's eToken: share-less, moving dollar-for-dollar with the obligation, with exits clamped so it always still covers the tokens outstanding.
• Resting order - a standing limit instruction ("buy/sell at this price or better") whose input sits in escrow; fillable by makers or PSM fillers, cancellable anytime, and - for redeems - force-executable after the claim threshold.
• RFQ (request for quote) - Own's cash-market model: instead of an order book, you ask a market maker for a price and it answers with a firm quote.
• Robinhood Chain - the network where Own is deployed and live today.
• Settle band - the rule that every quoted settlement must price within ±5% of the current mark, capping the damage of a compromised quote key.
• Spread - the small gap between a maker's buy and sell prices: the trader's only trading cost and the maker's entire pay (Own adds no mint/redeem fee).
• Trading pause / asset halt - the two emergency levers: a reversible freeze on new trading, and a permanent wind-down at a fixed price with a funded exit for every holder.
• Utilization - how full something is against its limit: global utilization (net exposure vs. the 65% cap) governs solvency, lending utilization (borrowed vs. lendable) sets the rate at the kink.
• Vault Manager - the operator of a collateral vault (typically a market-making firm): accepts LP deposits, runs the lending book, and distributes the vault's earnings to its LPs.
• Vault shares - the ERC-4626 claim an LP receives on deposit; the share price rises as the vault earns, which is how LP yield accrues.
• Wrapper token - a tokenized real stock from a regulated issuer (Ondo, Robinhood...), backed 1:1 by actual shares; the ingredient held in Reserve Vaults as the first layer of backing.

What just happened

• We collected every Own-specific term from the whole tour into one alphabetical glossary, with a single plain sentence each.
• That's the end of the tour: you now have the whole picture - the trade, the price, the two-layer backing, the exits, the money, and the safety.

This book describes Own's design and uses illustrative figures that reflect market rates around July 2026. Real returns vary with market conditions. Nothing here is an offer, investment advice, or a guarantee of returns. Synthetic stock exposure carries market, smart-contract, and counterparty risk, and Own is not available to US persons or other restricted jurisdictions.