Graduation into Uniswap v4

Graduation is the moment a market transitions from a virtual AMM into a real, permanent spot pool on Uniswap v4, with the perpetual market switching to an on-chain secondary oracle.

The graduation rule: five gates, not one

Graduation isn’t just about reaching a volume number. A market must clear five independent gates before it becomes a candidate for graduation:

Gate	Requirement	Purpose
1. Volume	Cumulative volume reaches $2,000,000 USDC	Confirms sustained trading interest.
2. Trader Diversity	At least 50 unique traders, no single wallet over 15% of volume, and healthy two-sided skew on 3 of the last 7 days	Proves community adoption rather than a single whale trading alone.
3. Funding Stability	Average funding rate over the trailing 72 hours stays under 8 bps / hour	Ensures the perp price isn’t violently deviating from fair value.
4. Resilience	Market is at least 7 days old, has at least $4,000 in its insurance reserve, and has cleared liquidations without bad debt	Proves the market can handle real volatility.
5. Integrity	Token supply is verified and mint authority is locked	Protects community buyers from mint abuse.

Progress across all five gates is visible on the trading terminal and Creator Dashboard.

What happens during graduation

Clearing the five gates makes a market eligible. From there:

Protocol Approval: A protocol admin reviews the market and calls approveGraduation(). This snapshots the secondary market parameters.
Uniswap v4 Pool Seeding: The protocol executes graduate() on PerpesEngine. The engine seeds a full-range token/USDC pool on Uniswap v4 at the current index price.
LP Position Burn: The Uniswap v4 position NFT is minted directly to 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dEaD. This locks the liquidity permanently — nobody can ever withdraw or rug it.
Supply Burn: Any remaining unminted token supply inside the engine is sent to 0x...dEaD. The Uniswap v4 pool now holds the only tradeable circulating tokens.
Secondary Engine Activation: The perp market reopens on the secondary engine, pricing off the on-chain Uniswap v4 oracle with worst-of fills and skew premiums.
Counterflow Backing: The market is automatically backed by the Counterflow Vault (cfUSDC).

What changes after graduation

	Before (Primary, vAMM)	After (Secondary, Uniswap v4)
Spot Pool	None (pure virtual curve)	Real Uniswap v4 pool with burned LP
Spot Trading	Perps only	Spot tradeable on Uniswap
Pricing	Internal curve	On-chain Uniswap v4 oracle with worst-of fills
Max Leverage	Up to 40x	Starts at 15x, unlocks +5x/day up to 40x
Funding Cadence	Every 15 minutes	Hourly
Liquidity Backstop	Market-isolated vault	Backed by Counterflow Vault (`cfUSDC`)

What does NOT change

Open positions stay open: Your entry price, size, collateral, and PnL survive the graduation transition completely intact.
Token contract stays the same: The ERC-20 token address and existing wallet balances do not change.
Liquidations continue: The liquidation engine protects the market as usual.

For creators

Announce when your market is approaching graduation gates to build excitement with your community.
Don’t try to spoof volume with wash trading: wash trading earns zero reward points and fails Gate 2.
Gate 2 rewards genuine community distribution — a coin dominated by one wallet will stall even with high volume.

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Trading

Launching & Listing

Counterflow LP Vault

Rewards & Referrals

Social & Community

Safety & Security

Support