Market makers

Market makers are what let you sell a position before a market ends. Each one runs its own pool of ANYONE, sets its own rules for which positions it buys, and competes with the others on price. They earn the exit discount, the result of the positions they hold, and a share of the fees of every market they serve.

Where they fit

When a trader sells early, the sale goes to the best offer available at that moment:

1. Other traders first. A position listed for sale can be bought directly by anyone, and a new position on the same outcome can take it instead of entering fresh.
2. Then the market maker pools. Every pool whose rules cover that market makes an offer. The best one wins.

A market maker never touches a market's pool. It pays sellers from its own money, and if it has none free, it simply stops buying. The market keeps working either way.

The mandate

Each market maker sets a mandate: the rules its pool buys under.

Rule	What it controls
Market types	Which kinds of markets the pool serves, for example daily races or markets created by users
Most per market	The most the pool can have tied up in a single market
Least per trade	The smallest sale it buys
Total exposure	The most of the pool that can be in open positions at once
Discount	How far below a position's current value the pool buys

The market type of every market is recorded by the factory when the market is created, so a pool's mandate can be checked on-chain.

Pools compete on price: the one with the smallest discount, among those whose mandate covers the position, buys it. A tighter discount wins more sales; a wider one wins fewer, with more margin on each.

How a market maker earns

Source	How it works
The discount	The pool buys a position below its current value
The positions it holds	At resolution the pool collects exactly what any holder would: the payout if they won, nothing if they lost. A bought position keeps its rising-floor credit
Fees	26.25% of every fee in a market goes to the market makers that served it. See below

The market maker share of fees

A market's market maker share is earned by absorbing exits: buying positions that traders sell. To earn the full share, the pools together have to absorb at least 5% of the market's volume.

required   = 5% × market volume
earned     = market maker share × min(1, absorbed ÷ required)
your pool  = earned × your pool's absorbed ÷ all pools' absorbed

• Every pool is paid the same rate per ANYONE absorbed, whatever its size.
• If the pools absorbed less than 5%, they earn the matching fraction. The part nobody earned goes to the protocol.
• If no pool served a market, its whole market maker share goes to the protocol.

Creator-sponsored depth

A market's creator, or anyone else, can sponsor a market with ANYONE. Sponsorship raises how much the pools can buy in that market, pays the market makers that serve it, and adds to the rebate for traders who hold. It never enters the market's pool and never changes anyone's payout odds. If no market maker served the market, the market maker part of the sponsorship goes back to the sponsors. If the market is NUKEd, all of it does.

The protocol pool

Besides the market makers' own pools, ANYONE runs a protocol pool that serves every market under the same rules and competes on the same terms. It has no advantage in price or priority. Only the protocol deposits into it.

Market making can lose money

A market maker is on the other side of traders who cash out early. If the positions a pool bought lose, the pool loses that money.