Research Protocol

This explainer is written from a strict source discipline:

• no substantive market-structure claim is promoted from memory alone;
• reader-facing claims map to claim IDs in claim-register.md;
• claim IDs map to source IDs in source-ledger.md;
• venue-specific mechanics stay venue-specific;
• synthetic numbers are labeled as teaching examples, not market data;
• unresolved terminology stays visible instead of being smuggled into prose.

For the full backstage protocol, see research-protocol.md.

Reading The Chapter Notes

You will see compact source notes like [C024]. These are claim IDs, not external source links. They point back to claim-register.md, which then points to the underlying verified source IDs.

This keeps the reading experience smooth while preserving the audit trail.

Current Caveats

• “A-book” and “B-book” are intentionally not used as formal taxonomy yet. The underlying mechanics are discussed as externally hedged flow, internalized flow, and retained residual risk.
• IG’s disclosed hybrid risk model is used only as an IG-specific example.
• The BTC numbers in Chapter 1 are synthetic accounting examples.