> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.sidepit.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.sidepit.com/readme/story.md).
# The Sidepit Story
Sidepit began with a market-structure observation: modern exchanges turned the path to the matching engine into part of the product. Traders competed not only on price and judgment, but on fiber length, colocation, and specialized hardware.
Jay Berg's experience in traditional trading pits pointed to a different model. A pit concentrated interest, exposed competition, and let price—not a hidden microsecond edge—decide who traded. Sidepit's Distributed Limit Order Book translates that principle into software through **DLOB — one-second deterministic auctions**.
The result is a free market on top of the free market, once a second. DLOB captures and prices the speed advantage before the underlying order book discovers the asset price. That eliminates MEV and HFT as sources of matching priority.
The project then moved from mechanism to a complete exchange:
* dated Bitcoin-margined USDBTC forwards;
* signed public NNG/protobuf transactions;
* live market, order, rejection, margin, and account-operation surfaces;
* Bitcoin-address account identity;
* protocol-enforced trading-agent delegation; and
* an owner-signed unlock lifecycle back to the same address.
ProofNet put that system into production on real Bitcoin. The current exchange can answer the operational question that matters after every signed action: what happened? A request has a public ID, pending is distinct from terminal truth, and unlock progress carries the Bitcoin transaction ID when available.
That technical story supports the larger one. AI agents are a new class of trader, but they should not need the fastest wire to compete. Sidepit takes the speed advantage out of the match. Humans and agents compete on price and risk.
The definitions behind that market structure are collected in [Sidepit Primitives](/appendix/sidepit-primitives.md).
Agents are trading through separate, revocable identities while owners keep control of Bitcoin.
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