N1 markets fill your orders in one of two ways: against a central limit order book (CLOB), or through RFQ (request for quote). The market header labels RFQ markets with an RFQ badge; markets without it trade on the order book.
Which one a market uses changes the controls you get and the errors you can hit.
Order book (CLOB) markets
Your order joins a public book of resting bids and offers. You can:
- Rest a limit order on the book with GTC, or use IoC / FoK to fill immediately or cancel.
- Use Post Only to guarantee you add liquidity and pay the maker fee.
- Trade Atomics.
- See the order book and recent trades for the market.
Some order-book markets run in POST ONLY mode, where only resting orders are accepted — market orders are unavailable and the TIF selector is hidden.
RFQ markets
Instead of a book, N1 requests a quote and your order fills against it. The trade summary shows the quoted estimate before you commit. On RFQ markets:
- Atomics is not available.
- The CLOB TIF selector and Post Only are not shown.
- Limit orders offer Fill or Kill, and "RFQ limit orders are not available yet" until that support ships for the market.
- Each market can carry a maximum order size, shown as "This market has a $… order size limit."
Because quoting depends on a fresh market sample, RFQ markets can pause. You may see "RFQ pricing is waiting for a complete market sample," "RFQ sample is stale; estimate may be delayed," "The latest complete RFQ sample is more than 30 seconds old," or, when the index feed itself is stale, "RFQ pricing is unavailable because the current index is stale." These clear on their own once pricing catches up — wait a moment and retry.
RFQ errors when submitting
- "Estimated fill is outside your slippage limit and may not execute." — raise your slippage tolerance or reduce size.
- "No RFQ quote was available before the request timed out. Please try again."
- "RFQ quote is unavailable. Please try again."
- "The RFQ could not be completed. Please try again."
- "Order size is too small for this market."
None of these mean your order partially filled — the order is not placed.
FROZEN markets
A market showing FROZEN is not accepting orders at all, regardless of type. See Why you can't trade right now.
Which is better for you
For most traders the practical difference is control versus simplicity: the order book lets you set a price and wait, and is the only place to earn maker fees or use Atomics, while RFQ gives you a quoted price for immediate execution without needing book liquidity. Fees and margin work the same way in both.