The two sides of the Book

Every line in the Book is a standing intent. Asks are options already written and listed — collateral sealed in glass, waiting for a buyer to take them. Bids are escrowed offers to buy: a price posted with the premium locked up front, naming the exact strike, expiry, and amount it wants filled. Nothing here is a promise. Both sides are funded before they reach the Book, so what you read is what you can take.

• ▸Ask = a written option, listed and collateralized, offered to sell
• ▸Bid = a funded offer to buy at one strike, expiry, and size
• ▸The spread between them is the open ground where price is found

Lifting an ask

Reading the Book from the buy side is direct. You find an ask whose strike, expiry, and amount answer your need, and you take it — premium moves, the contract is yours, the writer's collateral stays sealed until exercise or expiry. There is no queue and no quote to chase. The option already exists; you are claiming it.

Filling a bid — the writer's edge

A bid is demand that has already put its money down. When a writer sees a bid they like, they mint the option against their collateral and fill it in one transaction — write and sell collapse into a single move. The premium, escrowed by the buyer, is released the instant the contract is forged. No counterparty risk, no waiting to be matched: the offer was real before the writer ever touched it. This is the Book working for human and agent alike — an agent scanning bids can fill demand the moment terms align.

• ▸Buyer escrows the premium when posting the bid
• ▸Writer fills it by minting the option against collateral
• ▸Write and sell settle atomically — one transaction, no float
• ▸Escrow releases on fill; neither side can renege mid-trade

Where it lives

The Book sits at the center of Obsidian — every ask is something a writer listed, every bid something a buyer funded, and the Forge is where you shape the strategy before you post into it. Open the Book to read live depth, lift an ask to buy, or post a bid and let a writer come to you. Collateralize a position and the contracts you write land here, listed, waiting. The Book answers to no one but the orders on it.