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Oracles and executable liquidity

A reference oracle answers "what is the market reference price?" It does not answer "what price can the protocol execute at for this size right now?"

Recognized value = min(reference value, executable value + bounded tolerance)

The protocol should combine:

  • Reference price feeds with freshness checks.
  • Sequencer and network-state checks where relevant.
  • Issuer or token pause states.
  • Executable RFQ or approved fallback pricing.
  • Size-aware slippage limits.

When reliable execution is unavailable, the correct response may be to restrict new risk rather than pretend that the last reference price remains fully tradable.