> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ocx.global/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Methodology overview

> How OCX sources market data and prices its listed products

This section explains, conceptually, how OCX arrives at the prices you see on the
platform: where our reference market data comes from, and the models we use to
mark perpetuals, options, and dated futures. It is written for traders,
developers, and market makers who want to understand *what* we compute and
*why* — not a specification of internal parameters.

<Info>
  This is an educational overview of our methodology. Exact model constants,
  smoothing factors, spread widths, deviation limits, and rate caps are
  operational parameters that OCX may adjust over time in response to market
  conditions. Where a specific number matters to your trading, it is surfaced
  through the public API responses rather than fixed in this document.
</Info>

## The building blocks

OCX prices every listed product against institutional reference data from the
**CME Group** markets, delivered in real time through **CQG**. From that single
source of truth, three pricing pipelines run:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Market data" icon="satellite-dish" href="/methodology/market-data">
    Real-time CME futures and options via CQG — the reference prices everything
    else is built on.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Perpetuals" icon="infinity" href="/methodology/perpetuals">
    Index price, mark price, and the periodic, capped funding mechanism that
    tethers a perp to its underlying.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Options" icon="chart-line" href="/methodology/options">
    Black-76 pricing off an implied-volatility surface fitted to market quotes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Futures" icon="calendar" href="/methodology/futures">
    Dated contracts marked to fair value from spot/index plus cost of carry.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Core principle: no price is better than a wrong price

Across every pipeline, OCX prefers the freshest reliable signal and treats
inputs that are too old to trust as *unavailable* rather than carrying them
forward. A missing input produces **no mark** rather than a stale one. This
discipline keeps downstream funding, margin, and settlement deterministic and
reproducible.

## Public API surface

The prices and inputs described in this section are exposed through OCX's public
API so you can consume them programmatically. Endpoints include (among others):

| Purpose                                                        | Endpoint                                             |
| -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| Perpetual & futures markets and their marks                    | `GET /perps/markets`                                 |
| Per-market mark, index, funding rate, open interest, 24h stats | `GET /perps/market-stats`                            |
| Perpetual order book                                           | `GET /perps/orderbook/{marketId}`                    |
| Perpetual OHLC candles                                         | `GET /perps/ohlc`                                    |
| Recent perpetual trades                                        | `GET /perps/trades`                                  |
| Live perpetual book / event stream (SSE)                       | `GET /perps/book-stream`, `GET /perps/stream/events` |
| Options board (all strikes/expiries with marks & IV)           | `GET /markets/board`                                 |
| Live options board stream (SSE)                                | `GET /markets/board/stream`                          |
| Options order book                                             | `GET /options/orderbook/{market_id}`                 |
| Volatility index                                               | `GET /markets/dvol`                                  |

<Tip>
  For live values, prefer the streaming (SSE) endpoints — they push updates as
  marks, funding, and the surface refresh, so you don't need to poll.
</Tip>