Superluminal — DFBA Explainer

SUPERLUMINAL / DUAL FLOW BATCH AUCTION

An exchange that fills by price, not by speed

On-chain perps on Fogo. Orders are batched every 40ms and everyone in an auction is filled at a single clearing price.

PRE-LAUNCH · TESTNET Not financial advice · DFBA TERMINAL v0.9

40msbatch window · Fogo block time

1clearing price per auction · same for all

0speed edge · no line-cutting

2dual flow · buy & sell auctions

[ 00 ] INTRO Filled by price, not by speed

Buys Sells Clearing price Fast bot

PRE-LAUNCH · TESTNET · NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE

An exchange that fills
by price, not by speed

Superluminal is an on-chain perps exchange that batches orders every 40ms and fills everyone in an auction at a single clearing price.

▶ NEXT or press → to continue

[ 01 ] WHAT IT IS

Batches orders in a 40ms window
and clears each auction at one price

Superluminal isn't its own chain — it's an app on Fogo, a high-performance L1 with 40ms blocks. What matters is how it processes orders: DFBA (Dual Flow Batch Auction) collects orders in a 40ms window and matches them at an auction clearing price (everyone in the same auction gets the same price).

BUY · price · size

40ms window
collecting

SELL · price · size

Collecting…

Collected for 40ms, filled at the price where buyers meet sellers. * Two auctions (buy/sell) → two clearing prices; the gap is the spread.

[ 02 ] DUAL FLOW BATCH AUCTION

Processed by a window, not by order

Instead of arrival order, DFBA collects orders in a 40ms window and settles two auctions (buy / sell) — each at one clearing price.

40ms WINDOW CLEARING PRICES

Sells ↑ Clearing price Buys ↓

BUYER AUCTIONSELLER AUCTION

Many order prices → one clearing price per auction.

Collect — sealed for 40ms

Orders are gathered into a sealed box for 40ms. No one sees who came first, no one can react. Line-cutting becomes impossible.

Dual flow — buy & sell auctions

Orders split into a buy auction and a sell auction, run independently. Makers don't fight each other; they match real demand.

One clearing price per auction

Each auction settles at its own single price. 0.001s early or late, same price. Speed drops out of the equation.

Why 40ms? A batch auction needs a short, precise window — Fogo's 40ms block time makes it possible. Measured: median batch interval exactly 40.0ms.

[ 03 ] THE PROBLEM

On a normal exchange (CLOB),
the faster side takes the good price first

A CLOB (continuous limit order book) fills orders the instant they arrive, in arrival order. Play it below and watch how a fast order ⚡ grabs the best quote first.

SPEED RACE

Incoming orders · arrival order

Press play — orders fill against the book in arrival order.

ORDER BOOK

RESULT ①

Fast orders take the best quote first.

RESULT ②

Slow orders get only the already-worse price.

RESULT ③

Makers widen the spread to defend, and regular traders pay for it.

Adverse selection = getting filled only by someone faster (better-informed) than you. Makers call it "toxic flow."

[ 04 ] SIMULATOR

Compare it yourself

Send the same order into CLOB and DFBA. Notice the books differ — that's the point: CLOB widens its quotes to defend against fast pick-off; DFBA can't be picked off by speed, so makers quote tighter (docs: narrower spreads). Result: DFBA fills at one better price, no front-run.

CLOB vs DFBA

SCENARIO

SIDE

SIZE

0.25 BTC

· demo. Per the docs (Jump Crypto·Fogo): each batch runs two auctions, each settling at one price, filled pro-rata, not time-priority. The tighter DFBA book here models the docs' result — no speed pick-off → makers don't widen defensively → narrower spreads & deeper liquidity (model simplification).

CLOB wider — defends vs pick-off

—

DFBA tighter — no pick-off

—

CLOB · avg fill

—

waiting

Run to compare →

DFBA · one clearing price

—

waiting

[ 05 ] SUMMARY

The whole thing in one slide

CLOB processes by order; DFBA processes by window. That one difference sums up to the four numbers below.

40ms

batch window · Fogo block time

clearing price per auction · same for all

speed edge · no line-cutting

dual flow · buy & sell auctions

PROBLEM

CLOB fills in arrival order — the fast side takes the good price first, and the slow side eats slippage and pick-off.

SOLUTION

DFBA batches into a 40ms window, splits into buy/sell auctions, each settling at its own clearing price — speed drops out.

RESULT

Everyone in the same auction gets the same price, no line-cutting. Even in extreme moves each auction aims to clear at one gap-free price.

Key terms · click a term to open its definition

superluminal

Filled by price, not by speed.

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