Account modes

This page describes the three account modes and what each one changes.

An account has one of three modes: unified, standard or portfolio. /info account_state reports the mode as abstraction.

Two different things are called a "mode"

This page is about the account mode. cross / isolated / strict_iso is a position setting. It is in margin modes. The two settings are independent: a standard account can hold isolated positions, and a portfolio account can hold cross positions.

What each mode changes

The three modes are not points on one scale. They change three separate properties, and each mode changes a different subset:

	What counts as collateral	How margin is computed	Where the USDC is held
unified	USDC only	Sum of each position's requirement	One balance
standard	USDC only	Sum of each position's requirement	Two wallets: perp and spot
portfolio	USDC plus eligible spot tokens, at a governance haircut	Scenario (SPAN) sweep over the whole account	One balance

unified is the base: one balance, USDC only, and a sum per position. standard changes only the third column. portfolio changes only the first two.

Only standard changes the ledger. unified and portfolio fund every product from one USDC balance. A standard account holds a perp wallet and a spot wallet. USDC moves between them only by an explicit transfer. See standard is two wallets.

unified

unified is the default. Every account starts in it. An account that never sent user_set_abstraction is in it.

One USDC balance backs every product. A perp loss, a spot-margin loss and an option premium all draw on it. Any one of them can consume the USDC that another one needs. withdrawable is what is left after every open requirement.

standard

standard has two USDC wallets and an explicit transfer between them. An account that enters standard at or above block 5,710,001 (node 0.9.7) gets the two wallets. An account that was in standard below that height keeps one balance. See before the split.

account_state reports this as split: true for two wallets, false for one balance.

standard is two wallets

Wallet	What it funds	Where to read it
Perp wallet	Perp orders and positions, option orders and escrow, withdrawals. Liquidation looks at this wallet only	account_value and withdrawable on account_state
Spot wallet	Spot orders and fills	The USDC row (signing_id 100) of spot.balances

The standard-mode split lists which action reads which wallet.

The spot wallet starts empty. usd_class_transfer is the only way to move USDC between the wallets:

• Perp to spot moves free collateral only. USDC that margins an open position stays in the perp wallet.
• Spot to perp moves USDC that no resting spot order holds.

A perp loss cannot reach the spot wallet. The insurance fund and ADL absorb the perp bankruptcy of a split account. Its spot USDC never does. For full isolation, with a separate address and a separate liquidation, use a sub-account.

Each wallet funds its own orders, with no cap. The perp wallet's free collateral admits a perp or option order. The spot wallet admits a spot order. The node refuses a spot order that the spot wallet cannot fund, with insufficient spot balance. A split account has no reservations and no spot margin.

To read the two wallets, use these fields. account_value and withdrawable are the perp wallet. The USDC row of spot.balances is the spot wallet. Its total includes the USDC that resting spot bids hold, so total − hold is what a new spot order can spend. The account total is account_value plus the total of that row.

Before the split

An account that entered standard below block 5,710,001 reads split: false. It keeps one USDC balance and a spending cap per product. These caps are reservations. There are three:

Scope	Covers
perp	Perpetual positions, cross and isolated
spot	Spot and spot margin, one cap for both
option	Option escrow

Set each one with user_set_abstraction kinds 1–3. Read them on account_state.reservations.

The caps fail closed. An unset reservation is zero, and zero admits nothing.

A reservation applies to admission only. No liquidation, ADL, settlement, funding or seizure path reads it. No cash path reads it: withdraw, transfer, vault and Earn ignore it. Thus a reservation:

• cannot hold back your own money (withdrawable does not change);
• cannot make the account harder to liquidate;
• cannot stop a loss in one product from consuming the USDC of another product.

A reservation caps what you can open. It does not protect money that you hold. To get two wallets, switch to unified and then back to standard. Both changes need a flat account.

portfolio

portfolio is portfolio margin, for accounts that qualify. Enrol with user_portfolio_margin. Two things change.

Eligible spot tokens become collateral. A spot token counts only when governance sets a positive collateral weight (pm_collateral_haircut) for that token. The credit is balance × mark × weight. The mark is the oracle price of the perpetual market that governance names for the token. When governance names none, the mark is the perpetual with the same symbol. A token with no such native perpetual never counts. A token whose perpetual is self-priced never counts. A token whose symbol is different from its perpetual needs the named mapping, for example a bridged gBTC that BTC prices. No token has a positive weight yet, so no spot token counts today. A stale oracle removes the credit. The sweep includes the full balance, without the weight, as a long spot leg. A crash in the collateral thus raises the requirement. USDC has weight 1 and gets no haircut. In the other two modes, a non-USDC spot balance has no collateral value. See the full rules.

Margin becomes a scenario sweep. The engine does not sum the requirement of each position. It stresses the whole account and takes the worst outcome, with a concentration penalty. Offsetting positions can require less than their sum. A concentrated book can require more.

Two governance limits control entry. The node reads them at enrol time only:

Limit	Default	Knob
Minimum net value	100,000 USDC	SetPmMinEnrollValueCents
Enrolled accounts	512	SetPmMaxEnrolledUsers

An account can always leave, even when it is underwater under PM margin. PM can require more than the per-asset sum. A block on the exit would trap an account inside the model that is worse for it.

standard and portfolio are mutually exclusive

The node enforces this in both directions, so no account can have both:

• user_set_abstraction refuses while the account is PM-enrolled, with "cannot change abstraction while enrolled in portfolio margin".
• user_portfolio_margin refuses while the account is in standard mode, with "cannot enroll portfolio margin in standard abstraction mode".

unified is the path between them: leave one, then enter the other.

This is also why abstraction can be one field with three values. In state, the two are separate: a mode value and an enrolment row. The field reports portfolio when the enrolment exists.

Changing mode

Send user_set_abstraction kind 0 with value 1 (standard) or 0 (unified).

The account must be flat on every surface. The node refuses the change while any of these exists: a perp position, a resting perp order, a parked trigger, an open TWAP, a resting spot order, a spot TWAP, a spot-margin position, an option position, or an open RFQ quote. The rejection names what it found.

When the account enters standard, the node splits the USDC. All of it stays in the perp wallet, and the spot wallet starts empty. The node refuses entry while the perp wallet is below zero.

When the account returns to unified, the node folds the spot wallet back into the one balance and clears every reservation. The node refuses the return while the spot wallet is below zero.

Choosing a mode

You want	Use
The simplest setup, with one balance for everything	unified
Spot USDC that a perp loss cannot reach, moved between wallets by hand	standard
Full isolation, with a separate address and a separate liquidation	A sub-account, in any mode
Spot holdings that back perp positions, and offsetting risk that nets off	portfolio