tame

tame · technical brief

01 /the binding ( initialize_pool )

tame is a Token-2022 mint with the TransferHook extension enabled, paired with a transfer hook program that simultaneously serves as the pool’s lifecycle enforcer. When the bound Orca Whirlpool is initialized, the program’s initialize_pool instruction fires and permanently records the binding inside a PDA seeded by the Whirlpool address and the mint address.

The PDA stores the pool’s geometry: token_a (native SOL wrapped as wSOL), token_b (the tame mint), tick_spacing, fee_tier, and the transfer hook program ID. The binding is one-way and one-time. Once written, all subsequent hook invocations validate the incoming Whirlpool against the stored PDA. Transfers routed through any other pool revert at the hook entrypoint.

02 /the coefficient ( transfer_hook_execute )

The transfer hook fires on every token movement the Whirlpool emits during a swap. This is where tame does its primary computation. When a swap settles, the Whirlpool program updates the pool’s sqrt_price and active tick, and updates liquidity at each touched tick. The hook reads this updated state and walks the tick bitmap.

For each populated tick within ±3 tickArrays of the active tick, the hook reads the tick’s net liquidity via the Whirlpool’s tick account. Each tick’s contribution to the coefficient is weighted by its inverse distance from the active tick (closer ticks count more, farther ticks count less). The weighted sum is normalized by the pool’s total liquidity to produce a unitless value between zero and one. This is the creature’s tameness. It is stored as 9-decimal fixed-point in the protocol’s state account and emitted as a CoefficientUpdated Anchor event.

03 /the gate ( transfer_hook_execute )

When an LP attempts to open or increase a Whirlpool position, the position program transfers tame tokens into the pool vault. The transfer hook intercepts this transfer. Its job is to reject deposits whose tick range exceeds an allowable bound. The bound is computed dynamically from the current coefficient: max_allowable_tick_width = MAX_TICK_RANGE × (1 − coefficient).

At coefficient zero the creature is feral and any range is acceptable (wide bands, narrow bands, anywhere in tick space). At coefficient near one only positions within ±tick_spacing of the active tick are accepted; everything else reverts. The gate is not advisory. When an LP attempts to deposit outside the allowable window, the hook returns TameError::RangeExceedsAllowable, and the entire instruction including any token transfers fails.

04 /the withdrawal ( transfer_hook_execute )

The transfer hook also fires on LP withdrawal, when tokens move from the pool vault back to the position owner. Unlike the deposit gate, it does not reject the operation. Instead, it computes a coefficient adjustment: how much the global coefficient decreases as a result of this withdrawal.

Withdrawals from concentrated bands (positions tightly clustered around the active price) produce smaller decreases than withdrawals from wide bands. This asymmetry preserves the work done by past swaps. The geometry the pool has been steered into is sticky against random LP exits. Easy to concentrate, hard to dilute.

05 /the permission encoding

Token-2022 transfer hooks declare their account requirements through an ExtraAccountMetaList PDA, written once during initialize_extra_account_meta_list. The list encodes every account the hook needs at execute time: the binding PDA, the coefficient state account, the Whirlpool, and the active tickArray accounts.

The Token-2022 program validates this list before invoking the hook. A malformed or incomplete list causes the entire transfer to fail at the program boundary, before any tame logic runs. The binding between the token, its hook program, and the bound pool is enforced by the runtime, not by trust.

tame is deployed on solana mainnet.

price-

market cap-

24h volume-

liquidity-

holders-

24h trades-

tamenessseven stages, defined by coefficient

0.000.140.280.420.570.710.851.00

0.000

feral0.00 to 0.14

skittish0.14 to 0.28

wary0.28 to 0.42

settling0.42 to 0.57

trusting0.57 to 0.71

bonding0.71 to 0.85

tamed0.85 to 1.00