For everyone / Prices and real-world assets
The RWA layer
The native oracle is the hard part of real-world assets. This page is what is built on it, and, at least as importantly, what Pickle deliberately does not build.
Three layers
| Layer | What it is |
|---|---|
| One: the native oracle | a price, published in the protocola real-world asset's price, produced by block production, with market hours respected |
| Two: exposure | a long or short position against a feedcollateral is crypto, settlement is crypto, no real asset is ever held |
| Three: a collateral registry | third-party tokenised assets admitted as collateralwith risk parameters, valuation haircuts and circuit-breakers; Pickle issues nothing |
First, the chain knows the price of things like Apple shares or gold. Second, you can take a bet on those prices, up or down, using crypto as your stake; you never own the share, you own a position that pays out in crypto based on where the price goes. Third, if a regulated company has issued a token that really is backed by a real asset, Pickle can accept that token as collateral, with limits, but Pickle itself never issues such a token.
One: the native oracle, described on its own page. The claim is narrow: a price for a real-world asset, published inside the protocol by block production, with market hours respected.
Two: exposure to those assets. Collateral is crypto. A position is long or short against a feed, with a margin engine, liquidation, and positions frozen outside market hours using the same schedule and status machinery the feeds already carry. No real asset is ever held, and settlement is always in crypto.
Three: a collateral registry for third-party tokenised assets. Tokenised real-world assets issued by regulated third parties can be admitted as collateral, with risk parameters, valuation haircuts and circuit-breakers. Pickle issues nothing in this arrangement; the issuer's obligations stay the issuer's.
Layer two is a margin system denominated by a feed: positions are opened against a registry price with crypto collateral, liquidated by the engine, and frozen when the feed's market status reports closed, so the reopening gate that protects the feed also protects the position. Layer three admits an external token as collateral under per-asset risk parameters, a valuation haircut and circuit-breakers; admitting it imports the credit, custody and legal standing of whoever issued it, and the parameters can limit exposure but cannot make a bad issuer good.
What is deliberately out of scope
Pickle does not issue tokenised real-world assets. Not issuance, not custody, not reserve attestation, not redemption, and not KYC-gated transfer restrictions on its own tokens.
The reason is that backed issuance requires things a chain cannot supply: a custodian under contract, attested reserves, and a legal entity willing to act as issuer. Those belong to issuers, and layer three is the rail by which their tokens reach Pickle as collateral.
Naming, stated plainly
Exposure is not the asset
Layer two is exposure to a real-world asset, not the asset. It is not tokenised AAPL and this documentation will not call it that. A holder of such a position owns a claim against a margin system denominated by a price feed. They do not own a share, they have no shareholder rights, and there is nothing to redeem.
Layers one and three are the parts that carry the real-world-asset label honestly: a price of a real thing, and a rail for tokens somebody else has properly issued. The classification position, stated in full so that it does not have to be inferred: the feeds are prices, not assets. A separate layer creates exposure measured against those prices. Pickle does not tokenise the underlying instrument.