Range Order

A range order is what a concentrated liquidity position becomes when its entire range sits above or below the current price.

A position spanning the current price holds both tokens. A position placed strictly above the price holds only the token being sold as the price rises; one placed strictly below holds only the other. As the price moves through the range, the position converts, token by token, until at the far boundary it is entirely the other asset. Withdraw at that point and the effect is a sell executed across the range, plus the fees earned while the price was passing through.

How it differs from a real limit order

The resemblance is close enough to be useful and loose enough to be dangerous.

A limit order fills at one price. A range order fills continuously across the whole range, so the effective price is an average, and the wider the range the further that average sits from the boundary the trader was targeting. Narrowing the range tightens the fill but the tick spacing sets a floor on how narrow it can be.

A limit order stays filled. A range order does not: if the price passes through the range and then comes back, the position converts back. Nothing settles until the owner withdraws, so a range order that is not monitored can fill and unfill repeatedly, and the owner captures fees rather than the trade they intended.

A limit order costs nothing to leave resting. A range order is liquidity, so it is exposed to the pool: it is taken by arbitrageurs at whatever the pool's price is, which is exactly the adverse selection an LP faces.

Why it matters to auditors

Range orders are the reason "this position is out of range" is not an error state. A protocol that manages positions on behalf of users must handle single-sided positions as a normal case: mints where one of the two amounts is zero, positions that earn no fees for long stretches, and positions whose token composition changes without any transaction touching them.

Vault and manager contracts that assume a position always holds both tokens, or that compute a position's value from a single spot price without checking whether the price sits inside the range, misprice single-sided positions systematically. That mispricing is exploitable by anyone who can move the price to the boundary before interacting.