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Circuit Breakers

Helm uses circuit breakers to avoid quoting swaps through unreliable market data. A circuit breaker is not an extra fee. It is a safety check: when a required market input moves too far from a trusted reference, the pool can return no quote instead of producing a price.

Stablecoin Peg Check​

The stablecoin peg check watches whether the settlement stablecoin is still close enough to its expected 1.0 value.

For example, a pool may allow the stablecoin to move up to 2% away from peg. If the stablecoin moves farther than the configured limit, Helm stops quoting swaps that depend on that conversion.

This protects the pool from quoting through a depegged or unreliable stablecoin conversion path.

Market Price Check​

The market price check watches whether the HyperCore top-of-book price is still close enough to the HyperCore oracle price.

For example, a pool may require the market price used for the swap to stay within 3% of the oracle price. If the relevant side of the order book moves outside the configured band, Helm stops quoting that swap direction.

This protects the pool from quoting through a thin, stale, or dislocated top-of-book price.

Liquidity Depth Check​

Helm also uses an automated liquidity-depth monitor for swap availability. This monitor watches HyperCore order books and checks whether there is enough market depth to hedge pool flow within the configured price-impact limit.

The check looks at both sides of the order book:

  • If there is not enough depth to fill the hedge, swaps for the affected pool can be paused.
  • If the simulated buy or sell price impact is above the configured limit, swaps for the affected pool can be paused.

This is different from the quote-level checks above. The stablecoin peg check and market price check can reject a specific quote. The liquidity depth check can put the pool into a swap-paused state until market conditions recover and swaps are re-enabled.

Integrating With Circuit Breakers​

A circuit-breaker response should be treated as a no-quote state. The integration should show that the route is temporarily unavailable and retry when market data returns inside the configured bounds.

Use the same preview and simulation path you use for normal swaps. If the route is unavailable because a circuit breaker is active or the pool is swap-paused, do not replace the quote with a client-side price estimate.

Next Steps​