Insights
Research and perspectives on onchain markets
What is Somnia Markets?
Somnia Markets is the shared market layer: an onchain central limit order book and matching engine, implemented as smart contracts, that supports spot, perpetual and event markets. Venues such as dreamDEX are built on it and share its books and liquidity.
Somnia Markets in the docsIs there a protocol fee on Somnia Markets?
No. Somnia Markets charges no protocol fee; participants pay gas only. Venues built on Somnia Markets set their own fees, and dreamDEX currently charges zero maker and taker fees.
Fees in the docsIs a venue a separate blockchain or exchange I have to run?
No. A venue is a branded front door onto Somnia's shared order books. Matching, settlement and oracles run as smart contracts, and traders keep their own assets. There is no engine, sequencer or database for you to operate.
Venues in the docsHow does my venue earn money?
You set a venue fee on the activity your users bring. Every Somnia protocol lets builders add their own fee, and the venue fee is paid to your address in the same transaction as the trade. Somnia charges no protocol fee and takes no share.
Fees in the docsDo I need to bring my own liquidity?
No. Venues share the same books, so a new venue opens onto existing liquidity. For new markets you can bring your own market makers or use Somnia's market-making service. Shared Liquidity Vaults are coming soon.
Venues in the docsCan Somnia build and launch the venue for me?
Yes. With Managed Venues, the Somnia team designs, builds and launches a venue for any asset class under your brand, and supports you after launch with whatever you need. Market making from the Somnia team is available on request.
Can I restrict who trades on my venue?
Yes. A venue can be open to everyone or limited to an allow-list, for example for a regulated or invitation-only venue. The rules are set onchain and are visible to anyone.
Venues in the docsWhat do I need to start?
A wallet and the Somnia Markets SDK. You register the venue, set its fee and choose who can trade with the SDK, testing on the Global testnet first. The Venue Kit, with a front-end template and a single CLI flow from testnet to mainnet, is coming soon.
Launching a venue in the docsDoes Somnia take a fee on trades?
No. Somnia Markets charges no protocol fee. Traders pay network gas, and venues set whatever fees they choose.
Fees in the docsWho holds customer funds?
Traders hold their own assets until a trade settles. Settlement happens onchain. Institutions that need qualified custody can use providers that support Somnia, including BitGo and Fireblocks.
Is matching really onchain?
Yes. The order book, the matching and the settlement are smart contracts on the Somnia L1. No offchain engine or central sequencer decides the order of trades.
Somnia Markets in the docsCan a venue restrict access by jurisdiction?
Yes. Access policy belongs to the venue. dreamDEX, for example, offers event contracts in permitted jurisdictions only.
How fast are orders?
Somnia produces 100 ms blocks and finalises in under a second on mainnet. dreamDEX reports that 95% of orders are placed within 24.4 ms.
Is there MEV?
Ordering is set by deterministic consensus rules, not by a sequencer or block proposer choosing transactions. Nobody in the middle can reorder a trade to profit from it.
Which APIs are available?
dreamDEX offers REST and WebSocket APIs, CCXT, a CLI and MCP-native endpoints. Somnia Markets contracts can also be called directly from any language.
APIs and SDKs in the docsDo we need to run matching infrastructure?
No. Matching and settlement run as smart contracts on Somnia. Your product places orders and shows state.
Somnia Markets in the docsHow do we get paid?
Orders carry builder-fee fields, so the interface that routed a trade is paid when it fills.
Fees in the docsCan our users avoid gas prompts?
Yes. Session-key accounts, built on EIP-7702, let users trade without a wallet prompt for each action, and native gas sponsorship, coming soon, removes gas from the first trade.
Somnia Accounts in the docsIs this an AMM?
No. Somnia Markets is a central limit order book with price-time priority. Liquidity rests as limit orders, not in a pricing curve.
Spot markets in the docsHow are prices for margining set?
Somnia Price Feeds supplies index, mark and oracle prices with manipulation controls.
Somnia Price Feeds in the docsWhat does a trade cost?
Network gas only. There is no protocol fee, and venues set their own trading fees. dreamDEX charges none.
Fees in the docs