Tick interval

Last modified: April 22, 2026

In the previous example, we allowed any integer $i \in \mathbb{Z}$ to serve as a tick index. In practice, however, CenturionDEX v3 restricts the set of tick indexes that may be used as position boundaries through a parameter called the tick spacing. Let $s$ be a positive integer denoting this parameter. Then a tick index $i$ is admissible as a lower or upper bound of a position only if

i \equiv 0 \pmod{s}.

Equivalently, only multiples of $s$ may be used as position boundaries. For example, if $s=20$ , then the admissible tick indexes are

\ldots,-40,-20,0,20,40,\ldots

Thus, the tick spacing determines the granularity with which liquidity providers can choose price intervals.

Returning to the example above, suppose now that the pool uses tick spacing

s=20.

Recall that the target price interval was

[p_a,p_b]=[2300,3100].

Because only multiples of $20$ are admissible, the actual boundary ticks must be chosen among such indexes. To obtain a tick-aligned interval that contains the desired range, we select

i_a = 20\left\lfloor \frac{\log_{1.0001}(2300)}{20}\right\rfloor = 77{,}400,

and

i_b = 20\left\lceil \frac{\log_{1.0001}(3100)}{20}\right\rceil = 80{,}400.

The neighboring admissible ticks around the target bounds are therefore

77{,}400,\quad 77{,}420,\quad 80{,}380,\quad 80{,}400.

The prices associated with these admissible ticks are approximately:

\begin{array}{c|cccc} \text{Tick index} & 77{,}400 & 77{,}420 & 80{,}380 & 80{,}400 \\ \hline \text{Tick price (approx.)} & 2297.583 & 2302.183 & 3095.170 & 3101.366 \end{array}

Hence, the tick-aligned interval determined by the admissible bounds that contains the desired range $[2300,3100]$ is

[p(77{,}400),\,p(80{,}400)] \approx [2297.583,\;3101.366].

Therefore, with tick spacing $s=20$ , a liquidity provider cannot implement the exact continuous interval $[2300,3100]$ . Instead, the position must be defined using admissible discrete tick boundaries, which in this case leads to the interval $[2297.583,3101.366]$ .

The tick spacing parameter is fixed when the pool is created. A smaller value of $s$ allows liquidity providers to choose price ranges more precisely, but it also makes the system more granular and may increase execution costs when the price crosses initialized ticks. Conversely, a larger tick spacing reduces boundary precision, but it can make the bookkeeping of liquidity changes more efficient.