Never trust an "RFQ" cell as a real price. We're explicitly telling you the number isn't reliable.
What "RFQ" means
You'll occasionally see RFQ (Request For Quote) shown in place of a price on a market. Two reasons that can happen:
- No liquidity. The market has no resting orders on at least one side, so there's no fair price to display.
- Identical odds on both sides. YES and NO show the same number, which usually indicates a data-integrity issue. Rather than mislead you, we hide the price - unless both sides are real resting orders on a consistent book, where matching prices are legitimate.
Blue prices on an empty book
A cell with no resting orders can show a price in blue instead of RFQ. That's a short-lived quote from the 4rho Desk, the platform's market maker: the price it will trade at if you take it. Nothing is resting behind it yet. Taking it puts the market and the Desk's order on-chain first, then fills your order against that order; if the quote has expired or changed by then, your order is rejected. Green and red prices are orders you can hit right now.
Warning:
What you can do
- Make the market. This is an exchange - an empty book is an open book, not a closed one. Open the market, choose Limit, and set your price. Your order becomes the first quote others trade against, and it sits first in line until someone takes the other side. On a market showing RFQ, you're not waiting for a price - you're setting it.
- Wait for liquidity. If you'd rather not quote first, many markets fill in as the event approaches (game day, election day, etc.). Refresh later and a maker may have posted a price you can take.
- Check a related market. Soccer matches have three markets per game. If one shows RFQ, the other two may not.
- Tell us if something looks off. If a market should have liquidity but consistently shows RFQ, open a support ticket - we want to know.
Why this exists
Some platforms quote a synthetic mid-price even when the order book is empty - it makes the UI feel "alive" but the price isn't tradable. We chose the opposite default.
Note:
Showing fake odds is worse than showing nothing. 4rho's default is real odds or no odds.
That's an intentional trade-off. New markets and slower-moving markets will sometimes look bare - but that's your opening: the moment you post a limit order, the RFQ cell becomes a real price, and it's your price. As soon as any maker posts an order or an event nears its resolution time, the cell fills in for everyone.