The payoff chart

What the chart draws#

The chart card's third tab, PAYOFF, draws in one of three modes, named by data-payoff-mode on the card. For a PROTECT or FARM account — which by construction hold exactly one perp and the option pair opened with it — mode perp answers what happens to this position if the price moves: the entire perp on its own margin plus the option pair's legs at what the front would pay for them, netted against what you actually paid, all else held constant, with the liquidation floor marked before and after the option pair. While you are pricing a PERP ticket the same curve folds the draft in pro forma, drawn before the perp exists, so you see the floor you would have before you send anything.

For the OPTION ticket, a priced draft lights the same tab in mode option: P/L at close for the one leg in hand — bought or sold, call or put — against every settle price, with its own breakeven marked, and no perp line, because a conventionally-margined option has no backing perp for a "same-floor, less-leverage" comparison to mean anything against. A held v2 single option (one already open, on any OPTIONS account) draws the same way, in the same mode option: it reads the position's own strike, wing, side, quantity and the premium actually paid or received at open, and if the account holds more than one single it sums every held leg into one curve — each leg's strike marked on the axis in its own wing colour (call green, put red), the summed curve in a neutral colour when there is more than one leg. An OPTIONS account holding both a perp and one or more held singles would draw mode mixed — the same perp-plus-options curve as PROTECT/FARM, with the single(s) priced in as ordinary legs — but nothing on today's product opens that combination: CREATE PERP only mints PROTECT or FARM, so a plain OPTIONS account never holds a perp to begin with.

LAYERS: what else the chart can show#

The chart toolbar carries a BID | ASK selector (the selected side draws bold), the DECAY stepper, and a LAYERS control, each switch greyed with its reason when it has nothing to draw. LISTED QUOTES are the oracle market's actual quotes at the strikes it lists, drawn only near a listed expiry and never smoothed. ORACLE is the two fitted surfaces, bid and ask, at the decay in view. MARKET is the front: the best standing bid and ask across the makers. OWN is your own posted and draft curves. MARK is the mark of a held position or a draft at that decay: the front's relevant side clamped into the corridor. The vertical line is labelled SPOT. On EARN a CURVES = OWN | MARKET pair sits beside them. See Pricing for what the oracle, the front and the mark each mean. Which switches are offered narrows per view: the OPTION view offers only LISTED QUOTES and ORACLE.

The DECAY stepper#

A − months + stepper on the chart toolbar sets which decay slice of the surface is drawn — the same rungs the OPTION ticket offers (3, 6, 12, 24, 55, 120 months). On the OPTION view it is the same number as the ticket's own DECAY box, live in both directions: stepping either one writes the other, so there is one number in two places rather than a copy that can drift.

What it does not draw#

The tab is enabled whenever there is something honest and simple to draw: a PROTECT or FARM account's one perp-plus-pair (mode perp), a priced OPTION draft or an OPTIONS account's held single option(s) (mode option). It stays disabled — greyed, with its reason — for an EARN account (risk is stated at the equity level there, never as a price) and for an account holding more than the tab can honestly show in one curve: an OPTIONS account holding a perp, an ordinary vertical and a single all at once only ever draws whichever position sorts first, not fixed and not user-visible on any product path today. Everywhere outside this chart — the dashboard, the accounts table — risk is stated as EQUITY NOW and EQUITY AT WHICH IT LIQUIDATES, in dollars, uniform on every scope and kind.