FAQ

Each answer here is short and points to the page that covers it in full. If a word below is new to you, the Glossary defines it.

For collectors

Do I need to send my cards anywhere?

No. Quanta never takes in, stores, ships, grades or sells a card. Each index is built from real sales of graded cards, and a position on the DEX is a contract on that index level. Your cards stay exactly where they are (How Quanta works).

Can I hedge my collection?

Yes. Open a short on the category your collection belongs to. If graded Pokémon prices fall, a short on PKMN gains while the cards on your shelf lose value, and you keep every card. The hedge covers the category as a whole.

Which cards are in PKMN?

Constituents are picked by liquidity: cards at a specific grade from a specific grader that sell often enough, between enough different buyers and sellers, above a minimum value. The full list is published with the index and refreshed at every review (PKMN, the first index).

Why isn't the most famous card in it?

An index needs cards that sell often and across many hands, and a trophy card only changes owners a few times a year. The Pikachu Illustrator that sold for more than $16 million in February 2026 (CNBC, Mar 2026) made headlines, but a handful of sales does not make a price series (Methodology principles).

Is my card in the index?

If your card, at its grade, trades often enough, it can be. The published constituent list shows exactly which cards are in. Either way, the index tracks the category your card belongs to, and that is what a hedge or a view on the market is built on.

Which sales does the index count?

Completed sales of graded cards. The levels and full history on the Quanta board come from Card Ladder, which tracks sales of graded cards across the major marketplaces and auction houses. The public on-chain record of vaulted card sales, settled in USDC, is the verifiable layer the index engine reads (The data source).

Who is on the other side of my trade?

Another trader. A perpetual has two sides: every long on the orderbook is matched with a short, one side's gain is the other side's loss, and funding passes between them. The orderbook is shared with other trading front ends, so your counterparty may be trading from one of those. Quanta lists and operates the market and funds its insurance fund, and no card changes hands (Perpetuals, explained for collectors).

Do a PSA 10 and a PSA 9 of the same card count as one constituent?

No. Each grade of a card is its own constituent, because the market prices the two grades very differently (What is a Quanta index).

For traders

Is the price I trade really the index?

Yes, inside a narrow band. The mark price is calculated from the index and the orderbook, and the matching engine clamps it to a band around the index, so it stays anchored to the number it references. Positions are valued and liquidated against that mark price (Index price, mark price, last price).

Can I short?

Yes. Every Quanta market is two-sided from its first day. You can be short an entire category of physical collectibles (Perpetuals, explained for collectors).

What leverage is available?

Up to 20x, on isolated margin. Each position carries its own margin, and that margin is the cap on what the position can lose (Margin, leverage and liquidation).

How is my downside limited?

Your loss on a position is capped at the margin you assigned to it. A loss on one position never touches another position or your free balance, and any shortfall beyond a liquidated position's margin is absorbed by that market's insurance fund (Margin, leverage and liquidation).

What do I deposit?

USDC, the dollar stablecoin, sent from the Solana wallet you connect. Your wallet asks for a single confirmation, the deposit itself, with no separate approval step. The network fee for it, plus the fee for the message that carries it to the trading infrastructure, is paid in SOL, so keep a little SOL in the wallet. Margin, profit and loss, fees and funding are all counted in USDC, so nothing gets converted along the way. Funds settle on-chain and stay under your control (Getting started).

Where do I trade?

On the Quanta DEX. The first market is the perpetual on PKMN, at /trade/PKMN. The stages that follow are on the Roadmap.

What are the fees?

A maker fee and a taker fee, charged when an order fills, and nothing else on a trade. Moving funds costs only what the network and the trading infrastructure charge: the network fee and message fee in SOL on a deposit, and the withdrawal fee shown on the withdrawal form before you sign. The full schedule is on the Fees page and is versioned. Funding is not a fee; it passes between longs and shorts.

Why would funding stay positive for a long time?

Collectors' markets tend to lean long. When more traders want to be long than short, the market trades above the index, and longs pay shorts until the price comes back to it. Longs factor that in, and some traders take the short side to collect it (Funding).

Is there a token?

Yes, the Quanta token, Quanta's own protocol token on Solana. It is separate from index tickers such as PKMN: exposure to a category comes from a position on the DEX. Taxes on the token's trades go into its liquidity pool, and part of protocol revenue buys it back and burns it (The Quanta token).

For sceptics

How is the index protected from manipulation?

The methodology is built on the assumption that someone will try. It uses medians rather than means, so a single outlier sale cannot move the level. Trades between cooperating wallets and instant flips are thrown out. No constituent is allowed to dominate. The archive and the periodic commitments make any attempt visible, and unusual funding flags one early. Cards come first because they are the deepest category to build on (Methodology principles).

Who computes it?

Quanta's index engine. Indexes are built from real sales: Card Ladder data powers the 44-index board, and the engine reads the public on-chain record of vaulted card sales as its settlement layer. The site displays what the engine publishes (Data and API).

Can I verify it?

Yes. The constituent list, the frozen dictionary that maps each token to its card, the periodic commitments and the archive are all public, and each index's specification, formula included, is published with the index. The public feed at https://tradequanta.xyz/api/indexes returns the board snapshot, and /api/indexes/history/<id> returns an index's full history (The data source).

How does a market stay on fresh data?

Through two rules. Constituents that stop meeting the liquidity rules are retired at review, so the index always runs on cards that actively trade. And if the oracle feed stops arriving fresh, the market switches to reduce-only: every position can still close, and nothing new opens against a stale number (Market safeguards).

Where is the formula?

In each index's specification, published with the index together with its thresholds and parameters, and versioned from then on. The principles behind it, and the failure each principle prevents, are laid out in Methodology principles.

For journalists

What is new here?

Three things at once: the underlying is physical and graded; the price comes from real sales, not listings or appraisals; and the index itself is what trades, long or short, on an orderbook. Quanta's indexes are the first tradable indexes on physical collectibles built from real sales (A world first).

What existed before?

An index perpetual on digital collectibles, priced off floor prices, which has since been delisted. A Pokémon card index perpetual that never left testnet. Perpetuals on individual cards. And card indexes that published data you could read but not trade. A world first covers each of them, with dates.

Where do your market figures come from?

Every figure on the site and in these docs is shown with its source and date, and all of them are listed with links on Sources. Board levels and history come from Card Ladder. Other figures, from GemRate, DefiLlama, Privy and the press, describe the wider market.

Who is behind the DEX infrastructure?

Quanta runs its markets on a professional orderbook infrastructure. Quanta lists and operates the markets itself and funds the insurance fund behind each one (The DEX).

Sources for this page are listed in Sources.