Reference
Pricing
Kavo reads prices from three independent surfaces. They are not interchangeable, and one of them must be normalized before it can be compared to anything onchain.
Sources
| Source | What it returns | Multiplier applied? |
|---|---|---|
| Robinhood price endpoint | The bid and ask of the underlying equity. | No. This is the raw stock price. |
| Chainlink feed on Robinhood Chain | A fair value for one Stock Token, where a feed exists for that asset. | Yes. It already reports token terms. |
| Onchain quoters | The output of a real swap at a given size. | Not applicable. It is the token price. |
The endpoint returns the equity price, not the token price
Robinhood’s reference endpoint gives you the price of the underlying stock. A Stock Token is not always one whole share. Comparing that raw number directly against a token price is the single easiest way to produce a basis that is nonsense.
The multiplier
Each Stock Token carries a currentMultiplier, which handles corporate actions such as splits and distributions. One token is worth the underlying share price multiplied by that value.
normalizedReference = underlyingEquityPrice x currentMultiplierWorked example
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Underlying equity price | $200.00 |
| Stock Token multiplier | 0.5 |
| Normalized Stock Token reference | $100.00 |
The token market price is then compared against $100, not $200. If the token is quoted onchain at $102, that is a 2% premium. Compared against the un-normalized $200 it would look like a 49% discount, which would be entirely an artefact of the mistake.
Never compare across surfaces without normalizing
The reference price and the oracle price live on different surfaces: one is in equity terms, the other already in token terms. Kavo normalizes the reference first so that every number entering a basis calculation describes the same thing, the value of one token.
Most multipliers are 1
For the majority of listed tokens the multiplier is exactly 1, so normalization changes nothing and the distinction is invisible. It is the assets where it is not 1 that make the difference between a correct number and a meaningless one, which is why Kavo applies it unconditionally rather than only when it looks necessary.
Freshness
Reference prices follow US market hours. Outside a session they are the last published quote rather than a live tick, and Chainlink equity feeds behave the same way. Kavo shows the age of the oracle reading so you can judge it instead of assuming it is current. Executable quotes are always live, because onchain liquidity trades continuously.
The basis arithmetic that consumes all of this is covered in Basis.