The bonding curve
How buying and selling change a launch coin’s price and progress toward graduation.
A bonding curve is a pricing rule backed by the market's current state. Before graduation, it determines how many tokens a CC buy receives and how much CC a token sale returns.
What changes in a trade
On a buy, the trading fee is separated from the input. The net CC increases the curve reserve and tokens leave the curve inventory. On a sell, tokens return to the inventory and CC leaves the reserve; the fee is deducted from the gross CC output.
Buying moves the curve toward its graduation target. Selling moves it away. Cumulative trading volume is therefore different from the net CC reserve used for graduation.
Supply and reserved liquidity
Each pool has a total token supply and a curve allocation. The remaining tokens are reserved for the AMM seed. The usual 80% curve / 20% AMM split means a one-billion-token example has 800 million tokens on the curve and 200 million reserved.
The connected launch configuration determines the actual supply choices, allocation and graduation target. Read those values for the coin you are using. Do not assume every market shares a target copied from an older example.
Price along an 80 / 20 curve
For the 80 / 20 allocation, let Q be the curve token allocation, M the pool's net CC graduation target and q the tokens sold from the curve:
Net CC reserve: R(q) = M × q / (4 × Q − 3 × q)
Tokens sold at R: q(R) = 4 × Q × R / (M + 3 × R)
At graduation: R = M, q = QThis formula explains the shape. Executable quotes also apply the pool's fee configuration, exact decimal arithmetic, minimums and current state. Integrations should request a quote instead of reconstructing an executable amount from a chart.
The spot price is the price of a marginal trade at one point. The average price of a larger trade spans part of the curve, so it differs from that spot price.
Virtual reserves
The pricing rule is equivalent to a constant-product market with virtual reserve offsets. Those offsets describe the formula. They are not additional CC or tokens available for withdrawal or migration.
At graduation, only the real reserve and reserved token inventory seed the next venue. Continue with graduation.