Routes: How an Order Reaches a Counterparty

A route is usually drawn as a line between a wallet and a pool. It is more accurately a sequence of decisions taken by different companies, each of which can be paid. This section follows that sequence in order: who builds the quote, who is offered the chance to fill it, who forwards the transaction, and who decides its position in a block.

The three pieces here are meant to be read in sequence. The first names every party on the path and the payment that reaches each. The second separates the two contracts a fill can take, because an obligation from a formula and an offer from a counterparty are not comparable on price alone. The third explains what happens when the right to interact with your order is auctioned, and where the money in that auction originates.

Nothing in this section is about tolerance settings or the arithmetic of price impact. It assumes you have that and starts one level up, at the arrangements that determine which pool or counterparty your order was ever going to meet.

Order flow routing on Solana The full path from signature to fill: who sees the order, who is allowed to trade against it, and which participant is paid at each handoff. 01 Read the piece RFQ versus pool fills A quoted fill from a market maker and an AMM fill are different contracts with different failure modes. What each one guarantees and what it withholds. 02 Read the piece Order flow auctions explained When the right to fill your order is auctioned, someone bids for it. Where that money comes from, where it goes, and what the auction costs you in time. 03 Read the piece

Then look at what protects the path

Once you know who is on the path, the next question is which parts of that exposure you can close and what closing them costs. That is the subject of the protection section, along with the harder question of how to judge a router when the only comparison available is against something that never happened.

Protection section Short answers to common questions