QuantumPoolsDocs
Guide 2 · Core Concepts

How a position behaves

A range, a price, and one rule: when the price walks away, we move the range to meet it with the token you already hold.

10 min read Beginner Interactive

In short

  • Your deposit earns trading fees only while the price sits inside your range. Outside it, you hold just one of the two tokens.
  • If the price stays outside past a delay you pick, a snuggle re-opens a range of the same width right next to the price, using only the token you hold. Nothing is swapped.
  • If the price comes back, the pool trades you back bit by bit and you earn fees along the way. If it keeps going, swapping would have done better. We show both.
  • Fees are collected at each snuggle. A performance fee comes off the fees (never your deposit), and a setting you choose splits the rest between your position and your wallet.
01 · The picture

Your range, in one picture

Every pool here has two tokens. Call them A and B, and measure A's price in B. When you deposit, you pick a price band: your range. Each deposit becomes its own position, held by the vault and recorded as yours.

Inside the range, traders swap against your tokens and pay you a fee each time. As the price moves, the pool quietly changes your mix. Price going up means traders take your A and hand you B. Price going down does the reverse.

Share of your position held in token A as the price moves For a range from 80 to 125, you hold 100% A below 80, a falling share of A inside the range, and 0% A (all B) above 125. Share of your position held in A (by value) 100% 50% 0% 50 80 100 125 150 Half and half at 100 All A below the range · no fees A mix · earning fees All B above the range · no fees
Computed curve: a range from 80 to 125, started at price 100. The blue line is the part of your position held in A. It only bends inside the range.

Two things follow. First, a narrow range earns more fees per dollar while the price stays in, but the price leaves it sooner. Second, once the price leaves, your position sits still in one token and earns nothing. That second fact is the problem a snuggle is built to fix. The gap between your position and simply holding the tokens is impermanent loss.

02 · Try it

Slide the price

Pick a width, then drag the price. The numbers use the same formula as the chart above, for a $1,000 deposit made at price 100.

What do I hold now?

Your range, the current price, and the share held in A 100% A 100% B 40 80 120 160 200 price 100
100
40220
Status
In range
Range 80 – 125
You now hold
50% A
and 50% B · 5.00 A + 500.00 B
Versus just holding
$0.00
position $1,000 · holding $1,000

Before trading fees. Fees are what can make up the gap; the Cover Value article shows how we measure that. Illustration only, not a forecast.

03 · The move

What happens in a snuggle

Say the price climbs out the top of your range. You now hold only B, and you earn nothing. A snuggle takes that B and opens a new range of the same width, placed just under the new price. No token is traded for another; you go back in with what you have.

Step 1: price 100 inside the range 80 to 125, holding half A and half B You hold 50% A · 50% B In range · earning fees Range 80 – 125 6080120140160 price 100
Step 1: the price is inside. Traders swap against you and you earn a fee on each trade.
Your position gets a new IDEach snuggle closes the old position and opens a new one, so the ID number changes.

Which side the new range goes on is decided by where the price went. Price fell below your range? You hold A, so the new range sits just above the price. Price rose above it? You hold B, so it sits just below.

04 · Solana

Solana: two kinds of concentrated pools — CLMM and DLMM

On Robinhood Chain and Base our vaults sit on Uniswap v3-style pools. Solana does the same job with two different designs, and our Solana vaults are built for both. Solana vaults are not open for deposits yet and have not been externally audited. Everything above about ranges and snuggles still holds; what changes is the shape of the price grid your range sits on.

CLMMDLMM
Who runs itRaydium CLMM, also Orca WhirlpoolsMeteora ("Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker")
Price gridContinuous ticks of 0.01%: the Uniswap v3 modelDiscrete price bins. The bin step is the width of one bin in basis points: bin step 200 means each bin is 2% wide
Your position isA tick range: a lower and an upper priceA span of bins, side by side
Earns whileThe price is inside your rangeThe price is inside your span. Only the active bin, the one holding the price, trades
Goes idle whenThe price crosses either edgeThe price steps outside the span. Idle the moment it does
Smallest edge stepThe pool's tick spacingOne bin

Raydium also runs Standard pools. Those are not concentrated: every deposit covers the whole price range (constant product, the Uniswap v2 model), so it earns only the whole-pool rate and there is nothing to snuggle. We do not vault them.

The snuggle on each

Same move on both. After your delay, the keeper closes the idle position, takes the single token it has turned into, and opens a fresh one-sided position right next to the current price, on the side where that token belongs. On a CLMM that is a tick range adjacent to the current tick. On a DLMM it is a span of bins adjacent to the active bin. The width carries across: bins × bin step ≈ range %, so a 10-bin span at bin step 200 is about a 20% band.

No swap, ever. A swap would pay the pool's fee tier plus slippage, and it would lock in the loss from the move that just happened. The one-sided re-entry keeps the full token amount and lets the market convert it back a trade at a time, paying you fees as it does. The next section puts numbers on that difference.

Why concentration matters

A full-range deposit earns the whole-pool rate: the pool's trading fees spread over all of its liquidity. A concentrated position earns its share of the liquidity that is active at the current price, the tick or bin the price sits in, because only active liquidity fills trades. That exact share is the concentrated rate the site shows:

The concentrated rate

fees per day = pool's daily fees × L_yours ÷ (L_active + L_yours)

L_yours is the liquidity your deposit puts at the current price; L_active is what everyone else already has there. Tightening the band raises L_yours for the same dollars: the same tokens are packed into fewer ticks or bins, so more of them sit at the price that is trading. It can never pass 100% of the pool's fees, because your share of the active liquidity can only approach one.

One validated point: a ±52% band on BUN/WETH earned about 2.7× the whole-pool rate. When a pool's active liquidity cannot be read, the app falls back to a fitted estimate, lift = 1.25 · w^−1.19 with w the half-band as a fraction of price, and marks it est. It agrees with wide bands like that one; at tight bands it overstates, which is why the exact share is what we show.

The trade-off is real. Tighter means more fees per hour while you are in range, but the price leaves a tight band sooner, so you are out of range more often and snuggle more. Each snuggle re-anchors you to a price that has already moved. Pick the width for the pool's volatility, not for the biggest lift.

Watch out: transfer-fee tokensSome Solana tokens use the Token-2022 standard with a transfer fee, say 1%, taken out of every transfer of that token. For a position that is a tax on the deposit, on both legs of every snuggle, on every harvest and on the exit. Our Solana vault is built to admit these tokens (it is not open for deposits yet and has not been externally audited), but any backtest has to model the tax or it will overstate what you keep. Treat tokens the venue marks Not verified the same way: nobody has vetted the mint, so check its transfer fee and authorities yourself before you deposit.
Quantum Drive Live: the model shows its own accuracyEvery width and delay this site recommends is re-fitted each night to what real depositors earned, on every chain, not to a backtest. The Quantum Drive Live page puts our predicted rate next to the rate depositors at that width actually collected, pool by pool, with the model's 30-day accuracy and the number of positions behind it. Gross fees, no promises: it shows how right we were last month, not what next month pays.
05 · The trade-off

Swap now, or let the pool trade you back?

Many range managers do something different at step 4: they swap part of your B back into A and re-center a fresh 50/50 range on the new price. That swap happens right after a big move, and it turns a paper loss into a real one. Here is the same position run both ways.

Worked example

$1,000 goes into a range from 80 to 125 at price 100 (5 A + $500 of B). The price climbs 30% to 130. The position is now all B, worth $1,059.02. From here:

  • Swap back: trade about $530 of B for A, re-center on 104 – 162.5.
  • Re-anchor (QuantumPools): keep all the B, open 81.6 – 127.4 just below the price.
inside [a, b]: value = L·(2√p − p/√b − √a)

What each is worth later

Swap back, price at 104
$897.21
bought A at 130, it fell
Re-anchor, price at 104
$1,009.62
B converted back slowly
Difference
+$112.41
after a 20% pull-back
Price after 130Swap backRe-anchorGap
Falls to 104 (−20%)$897.21$1,009.62+$112.41
Settles at 115$980.19$1,045.78+$65.59
Stays at 130$1,059.02$1,059.02$0.00
Climbs on to 150$1,112.89$1,059.02−$53.87
Position value after the exit at 130: swap back versus re-anchor Below 130 the re-anchored position is worth more. Above 130 the swapped position is worth more. They are equal at 130. $700 $800 $900 $1,000 $1,100 80 100 120 140 160 Price of A after the exit (in B) exit at 130 Pull-back: re-anchor ahead Trend: swap-back ahead +$112 −$54
Computed from v3 math: both lines start at $1,059.02 at the exit. Trading fees are left out of both.
  • Re-anchor with the B you hold
  • Swap back to 50/50 at 130

When it does not help

Read the right side of the chart. If the price keeps climbing, the re-anchored range sits below it holding B, and you miss the rest of the rise. The next snuggle re-anchors below the new price, still in B. In a steady one-way trend you get no benefit from waiting, and you keep moving.

Not a loss shieldEven at 104, the re-anchored position ($1,009.62) is still below simply holding the original 5 A + $500 ($1,020.00). Waiting shrinks the damage from a pull-back; it does not remove impermanent loss. The swap-back numbers also leave out the pool fee the swap would pay, about $5 here on a 1% pool. Read the risks.
06 · The money

Where the trading fees go

Fees build up inside your position. At a snuggle, the vault collects them, takes the performance fee on those collected fees only, then follows your fee setting for the rest. On liquidity pools the fee is at most 15% (15% today, read live from the vault); copy trading, where you copy another member's LP position, is up to 25%. It never touches your deposit or your price gains. Referring friends lowers your own fee 1% per friend with an open position worth $500+ (back up if they close out), with no cap (floor 0%), and routes 1% of each active friend's fees to you out of our 15%, never an extra charge to them. Details are in Performance & Fees.

Example fee split at a snuggle, default setting $50 of fees collected. 15% ($7.50) goes to the treasury. Of the $42.50 left, $25.50 is in B, the token the new range holds; half of it ($12.75) goes back into the position and half to your wallet. The $17.00 in A goes to your wallet. Fees collected $50.00 $30 in B · $20 in A After the 15% fee $42.50 $25.50 B · $17.00 A $7.50 to treasury from fees, not deposits $25.50 in B same token as the new range holds $17.00 in A the range can't use this token Back into position $12.75 Your wallet $29.75 $12.75 B + $17.00 A
Example: a snuggle after the price rose, so the new range holds B. Default setting: half of the B fees go back in, everything else is paid out.

Why can't the A fees go back in? The new range sits on one side of the price and only takes B. So fees in the other token always land in your wallet, whatever the setting. You pick how the usable side is handled:

Split defaultHalf of the usable token goes back in; the rest is paid out. The app calls this "Half in, half out".
Compound allAll of the usable token goes back in. The other token is still paid out.
Send to walletEverything is paid out. Your position stays the same size.
RouteThe share you would re-invest goes into another of your positions at its next snuggle. The vault supports it; the app lists it as coming soon.

You can change this at any time. The full list of settings is in Configuration.

Between snuggles

Nothing is re-invested on a timer. While your position stays in range, fees sit in the pool (the app shows them as Unharvested Fees) until you act. Collect pays them out. Compound puts both tokens back in; if the fees are all one token, they are paid out instead. A withdrawal pays them out too. The keeper cannot collect or compound for you; only you can.

07 · Who presses the button

Hands-off or hands-on

Auto-snuggle is off until you switch it on for a position. With it on, a keeper bot checks roughly every 1 to 3 minutes and moves your position forward one step at a time. It never picks your range: the vault works out the new edges from your width setting.

Timeline of an automatic snuggle your delay: 0 to 7 days Price back in (clock 5+ min)? Clock resets. Price exits the range 30-min average exits: clock starts Delay over Keeper snuggles keeper pays the gas
Automatic path: a short spike does not start the clock, and the live price must also be outside the old range before the snuggle goes through.

You can also snuggle a position yourself. It still has to be out of range, but it skips your delay.

Automatic (keeper)Manual (you)
Switched on byYou, per positionAlways available to you
Waits for your delayYesNo, runs right away
Needs the position out of rangeYesYes
Gas for the snuggleKeeper paysYou pay
Works while the vault is pausedNoNo

A pause never blocks withdrawals, collecting or compounding. Neither the keeper nor anyone else but you can move your funds out.

08 · Vocabulary

Words on this page

Range
The price band you pick. Your deposit only trades, and only earns, while the price is inside it.
Tick
The smallest price step a pool uses: each tick moves the price by 0.01%.
Tick spacing
How many ticks apart range edges can be. On the USDG/DELL 1% pool, for example, it is 200 ticks, about a 2% step, which is also the narrowest width allowed there.
In range
The price is between your edges. You hold a mix of both tokens and earn fees.
Snuggle
Closing an out-of-range position and re-opening the same width right next to the price, with the token you hold. No swap.
Delay
How long the price must stay outside before the keeper snuggles. You set it per position, 0 to 7 days.
Keeper
A bot that starts the clock and triggers snuggles. It pays the gas and cannot move or hold your funds.
Impermanent loss (IL)
How far your position lags behind just holding the tokens you put in. Worked example.
Cover Value
Fees earned divided by IL. Above 1× means fees are ahead of the loss. How it works.
CLMM
Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker: a pool with continuous ticks, the Uniswap v3 model. On Solana that is Raydium CLMM and Orca Whirlpools.
DLMM
Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker, Meteora's design: price is cut into fixed bins and a position is a span of them.
Bin step
The width of one DLMM bin in basis points. Bin step 200 means each bin is 2% wide.
Active bin
The one DLMM bin that holds the current price. It is the only bin that trades.