Seats

To make limit orders on a Phoenix Market, a trader must have a Seat on the Market.

What is a Seat?

A Seat is an account that tracks the ability for a trader to place limit orders on a Phoenix market. A Seat must be created and its status must be Approved in order to place a limit order on a Phoenix Market. Each Phoenix Market requires a separate Seat Account for each trader.

Seat Status

A Seat, once created, can have three statuses:

• Approved: This means the trader who owns that Seat can place limit orders on the market which the Seat corresponds to.

• Not Approved: This means the trader who owns that Seat cannot place limit orders on the market which the Seat corresponds to.

• Retired: This means the trader who owns the Seat can never place orders on the market which the Seat corresponds to. Retiring a Seat is an action that can only be performed by the Market Authority.

How to get a Seat

You can claim a Seat on any Market whose authority is the Phoenix Seat Manager Program, such as SOL / USDC, through the Phoenix Seat Manager program. Claiming seats and placing limit orders are permissionless and can be performed atomically. See here for how to claim a seat on a Market whose authority is Phoenix Seat Manager.

For markets whose authority is not the Phoenix Seat Manager:

• Create a Seat with the RequestSeat instruction.

• Request the Market Authority to change the Seat's status to Approved. Only the Market Authority can create a Seat with an approved status or change the status of an existing Seat.

FAQ:

Why do I need a Seat?

Each Phoenix Market contains information on outstanding limit orders, such as the amount of base and quote tokens locked in active orders, as well as the trader who placed the order. After a limit order is matched, the Phoenix program can then debit or credit the base or quote tokens to the appropriate trader record. A trader's seat ensures that the trader has a record on the market. A trader can withdraw settled tokens thereafter.

As a result, Phoenix does not require a crank to function, since the token accounts of the counterparty do not need to be known at the time of matching. This significantly improves user experience and performance.

I claimed a Seat and successfully placed a limit order. But why are my new limit orders now failing?

If you do not have any open orders on the Market and the Market's trader state is at capacity, your Seat may be evicted from the Market's trader state in favor of active traders with new orders. This can cause new limit orders to fail. If this happens, you can simply claim a new seat following the above instructions and proceed to place limit orders.