Dividends, splits and the multiplier
Your wallet holds raw tokens. A multiplier set by the issuer says how many shares each raw token stands for. Dividends and splits change the multiplier, not your token count. Once you have that, every number in the terminal makes sense.
Two units for one holding
| Unit | What it is | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Raw tokens | What is recorded on chain and what moves in a swap. Eight decimal places. | The ticket, the review panel, Activity |
| Shares, or scaled units | Raw tokens multiplied by the multiplier. What the holding represents economically. | The chart, the headline price, and on Quick as a second line under raw quantities |
At a multiplier of exactly 1 the two are the same. They drift apart as dividends are reinvested. A token whose multiplier is 1.0009 represents 1.0009 shares, and its price per raw token is 1.0009 times the share price.
What happens on a dividend
The issuer receives the dividend on the underlying share and, rather than sending you cash, raises the multiplier by a matching amount on a date it announces in advance. Your raw balance is unchanged. The shares it represents, and so its value, go up. Wallets that support the feature show the scaled balance; others show raw.
What happens on a split
The same mechanism, with a bigger step. On a ten-for-one split the multiplier is multiplied by ten. You hold the same raw tokens, each now standing for ten times as many shares, each of those shares worth a tenth of what it was. Nothing is sent to you and nothing needs doing.
What opcode does at the moment of change
A multiplier change is scheduled on chain with an exact effective time, so opcode knows about it in advance. At that time:
- OPmode quotes signed under the old multiplier stop being executable. If you were mid-review, you are asked to get a new one.
- OPmode fills in that market stop until opcode's owner wallet records the new multiplier in the market's on-chain account, which it can do only while the market is paused. Until then OPmode quote requests for that market are refused.
- Prices per raw token step by the same factor as the multiplier. Prices per share do not move because of it.
- Earlier fills are recorded in raw tokens, so a multiplier change does not alter them. A Quick order also keeps the multiplier it was quoted with, and its scaled amounts use that multiplier.
Reading the terminal
| Label | Unit |
|---|---|
| The large price in the instrument header, and the chart | USD per share |
| Raw token price, and the OPmode Price row | USD per raw token; the Price row is in USDC and includes the fee |
| You pay and You receive, for the token | Raw tokens; Quick also shows scaled units beneath |
| Scaled units per raw token, in the Instrument details | The multiplier itself |
Go deeperWhy not just trade in shares
Because the chain does not. A transfer moves raw token units; the multiplier is display metadata on the mint. A venue that quoted in shares would have to convert at the moment of settlement, and a conversion at a boundary is where an amount can be off by one unit or by a factor of ten. OPmode's reference is the underlying share price from Pyth multiplied once by the mint's active multiplier, a step the settlement program performs itself on chain, so the reference is already expressed per raw token. opcode prices in raw tokens from it, passes a multiplier of one to its engine, and converts only for display. The settlement program stores the multiplier last recorded for each market and halts fills the instant the mint's active multiplier differs. See Settlement on Solana.