The Observatory
Status:
draft· last updated 2026-09-11
The Observatory is a set of public pages that show, live, what NightWatch actually measures: where a price gap opens between exchanges, whether money can really move through that gap, and which chip and AI-adjacent stocks are trading around the clock as tokenized instruments. None of these pages require a login. Every panel is built to fail soft: when a feed is down, the panel says so ("loading...", "no verified route data") instead of showing a stale or invented number.
There are four pages under /observatory. This chapter walks each one, field by field.
| Page | URL | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Main deck | /observatory | The premium/basis instrument: is a token cheaper or richer on one exchange pair right now, and can that gap actually be captured |
| 24/7 | /observatory/24-7 | A world market clock (six stock-exchange sessions) plus tokenized stocks and ETFs that trade after those exchanges close |
| Semiconductors | /observatory/semiconductors | Fifteen flagship chip-sector names, plus OpenAI and Anthropic, as tokenized, always-on prices |
| Frontier | /observatory/frontier | Newer, less-settled rails: AI labs, pre-IPO perpetuals, one China-based memory maker, and a large-cap watchlist |
A byline ("Haru") appears on the main deck and the semiconductors page. The code comments describe this voice as template-generated from the live numbers on the page ("Haru's copy is template-generated from the live numbers (no LLM)"), not an independent AI opinion. Read anything signed by Haru as a structured summary of the data sitting next to it.
The main deck (/observatory)
The page's own heading is "The Korea axis, observed." Its central comparison is between two domestic exchanges (Bithumb and Upbit) and eight exchanges used elsewhere in the world (Binance, Bybit, OKX, Gate.io, KuCoin, Bitget, MEXC, Coinbase) plus Hyperliquid. It is built as one dense instrument panel, followed by a calmer editorial layer underneath.
Regime clock
A small triangle diagram in the top-left shows three currencies: USDT, USD and the won (KRW). It reports:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Regime state | PREMIUM or DISCOUNT - whether, on the median token right now, the domestic price sits above or below the world price after removing the currency-conversion effect |
| Venue median (e.g. "bithumb +1.2%") | The median real-edge percentage across every token quoted on that exchange right now |
| USD/KRW, USDT/KRW | The official dollar-won rate and the rate implied by USDT trading, sourced from the fund's own feeds |
| Basis | The gap between the official USD/KRW rate and the USDT-implied rate - the part of any "premium" that is just currency mismatch, not a real trading opportunity |
Premium cloud (3D scatter)
A rotating, click-to-inspect chart plotting every token on the selected domestic exchange along three axes:
| Axis | Field name in the data | What it captures |
|---|---|---|
| X (left-right) | real edge (relative_edge_pct) | The token's own premium after subtracting the market-wide currency basis - the part that is actually about that token |
| Z (depth) | raw premium (token_premium_pct) | The unadjusted price difference before removing the basis |
| Y (height) | net-after-cost (net_return_pct) | What would be left after estimated round-trip fees, ranked against every other token's net return |
A red floor band marks the "cost dead zone": the width of a typical round-trip cost for this exchange pair, computed from the day's own data rather than a fixed assumption. A gap smaller than that band cannot survive fees. Blue dots are gaps the system currently classes as transferable; red dots are gaps the transfer-checking logic currently classes as blocked ("mirage"). The gold dot is whichever token you have selected, with a trail showing its last known positions.
Clicking a dot selects that token. The panel below it then shows:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| edge | the selected token's real-edge percentage |
| raw | its unadjusted premium |
| pct | what percentile it sits at among all tokens on this exchange right now |
| z | how many standard deviations from the exchange's own average it is |
| net | its estimated net return after costs |
| NW GRADE | the token's current rating badge, if one exists (see the Token Rating chapter) |
| route state | OPEN (a transfer path exists), FROZEN / MIRAGE (blocked right now), or UNVERIFIED |
Distribution charts
Two smaller histograms sit beside the cloud: the raw distribution of real-edge values on the selected exchange, and the same values normalized (z-scored) against that exchange's own mean and spread. These exist so a large-looking gap can be checked against "is this actually unusual for this exchange today," not just against zero.
Asset Mobility Map
This is the transfer-route diagram, shared code (AssetMobilityMap.js) also usable elsewhere in the product. For the selected token it draws two domestic exchanges on one side and the eight-plus-one world exchanges on the other, with the token itself in the center.
| Visual element | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Solid green line, chain label, drifting dots | A route is open on that blockchain: the domestic exchange can withdraw, a world exchange can deposit, on a shared chain |
| Dashed red line + padlock | A route is blocked. A violet padlock means the domestic side has shut it (the exchange has withdrawals closed); a blue padlock means the world-side exchange has closed deposits |
| D / W badges on each venue box | How many of the token's chains have deposits (D) or withdrawals (W) open, out of how many that venue supports at all |
| "chains:" line under the center token | Every blockchain the system has verified this token moves on, capped in display to six with a "+N" count for the rest |
Hovering a venue shows a full per-chain matrix of deposit/withdrawal status. This whole map is described in the code as reading live NightWatch route probes, not static exchange documentation - a route can be marked open one day and closed the next as real conditions change, which is the entire point of measuring it continuously rather than trusting a published policy page.
Network weather. The same map component can also render a small strip of per-chain status words (clear/busy/jammed) plus a gas-cost sign. This data is a static estimate, not a live gas oracle, and it does not appear on the Observatory main deck. Replacing the static estimate with actually-measured deposit and withdrawal times is not in this version.
Transfer freeze headline and list
A top-right tile reports, out of the live gaps at or above a minimum size, how many are currently blocked from transferring ("gate_blocked / board_gaps") versus how many pass the transfer gate. A narrower list below it ("Today's mirages") shows the largest blocked gaps by size, each linking to that token's detail page.
Haru's Read
An editorial strip with four fixed beats: what happened, how a trading desk would read it, the underlying structure (the regime and basis numbers above, restated in words), and a pointer to your own next move in the instrument panel. When a daily brief has been written and stored for that day, that stored text is shown, with a small archive of previous days' briefs. When no brief has been stored yet, the page falls back to a version built live, in the browser, from whatever numbers happen to be loaded at that moment - the code marks this fallback "no LLM" and generates it from a fixed template.
Changed in the last 24h
Once at least two daily snapshots of route status exist, this section lists which transfer routes newly froze and which reopened, exchange by exchange and chain by chain, each token linking to its detail page. Before two snapshots exist the section stays hidden rather than showing an empty box.
The Fund exhibit
A small scoreboard for NightWatch's own paper fund, shown here explicitly as "the observatory's exhibit, not its point." It shows two books side by side (the code's internal names are "korea" and "global"), each with:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| initial | The book's starting notional in dollars |
| realized | Realized profit or loss in dollars so far |
| invariant | A pass/fail check that the book's own accounting still balances |
Below that, when enough settled trades exist, a "Covered vs Naked" comparison shows the win rate, the average net return with a hedge attached versus without one, and a "capture" ratio - the code labels this comparison "shadow-only," meaning it is a side-by-side analytical comparison, not two live trading books. A link points from this exhibit to /thusus, described in the page copy as where "this signal is actually operated."
24/7 Stocks & RWA (/observatory/24-7)
The hero of this page is a client-side world clock covering six stock-exchange sessions in the order the sun crosses them: KRX (Seoul), TSE (Tokyo), TWSE (Taipei), SSE (Shanghai), HKEX (Hong Kong), and NYSE (New York). For each it shows OPEN, LUNCH (for the exchanges with a midday break) or CLOSED, that exchange's own local wall-clock time, and a countdown to the next change of state. The code computes this from the browser's own timezone database specifically so daylight-saving transitions are handled correctly rather than hardcoded.
Below the clock sits a gold "always-on" strip of five tokenized instruments that keep trading while every exchange above is shut: Samsung (SMSN), SK Hynix (SKHX), a Korea-market ETF (EWY), and two pre-IPO names, OpenAI and Anthropic. All five prices come live from the product's own tokenized-asset board (/rwa/board), which the code comments describe as an isolated data lane that never touches the crypto arbitrage pipeline.
Under that, instance cards group further tokenized names by theme, each carrying an explicit status badge rather than a blanket claim of completeness:
| Instance | Status shown | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Semiconductors | LIVE | Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, NVIDIA and more - links to the Semiconductors page |
| Asia-Tech | LIVE | Hyundai, a KOSPI 200 index instrument, Alibaba, a Korea-market ETF |
| AI | LIVE-partial | OpenAI and Anthropic as pre-IPO perpetuals; a further name (labeled "Kimi") is shown as a placeholder row marked "not yet priced," never counted as live |
| Big Scalers | LIVE-partial | Tesla and Apple; SpaceX and other large names are shown as a dormant, monitored placeholder, not priced |
| Korea (broader) | planned | The page text says plainly that until a fuller market configuration lands, the main Observatory deck above is "today's Korea lens" |
| Taiwan | planned | Explicitly "added only when we can actually measure it" |
A footer table (EligibilityRegionsCard) lists, per venue, whatever the venue's own terms of service state about eligible regions, sourced and linked to the official page; anything not sourceable is marked to check the venue's own terms rather than guessed.
Semiconductors (/observatory/semiconductors)
This page prices fifteen flagship names in the chip and memory sector - Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, TSMC, Micron, NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, SanDisk, Arm, ASML, SoftBank, Broadcom, Lam Research and Coherent - plus OpenAI and Anthropic, all live from the same /rwa/board feed as the 24/7 page, each with latest price, 24-hour change and a small sparkline.
A separate strip on this page lists, per crypto exchange, how many tokenized-stock perpetual contracts each one lists (Gate.io, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin, Binance, MEXC). The code marks this list explicitly as a survey snapshot dated 2026-07-19, not a live count - it will not reflect listings added or removed after that date. Treat that strip as a labeled point-in-time reference, not a live venue comparison.
Frontier (/observatory/frontier)
The Frontier page is described in its own header as sections that "graduate to a full desk" once a curator is assigned; today it carries no editorial byline. Four sections:
- AI Labs - a self-fetching panel of prices for AI-lab-related instruments (moved here from the main deck in a prior update).
- Pre-IPO - a small sourced table of venues offering exposure to private companies before a public listing: Helix on Injective (described as onchain pre-IPO perpetuals covering names like OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic), Hyperliquid's Ventuals product (marked as a dormant rail with unconfirmed live tickers), and Gate's tokenized-securities product (naming one confirmed listing, a SpaceX token). Each row carries a confidence badge ("verified" or "reported") and a link to its source.
- China - one instrument, ChangXin Memory (CXMT), described as a China-based memory-chip maker, priced through the same
/rwa/boardfeed when the board has a live mark for it; the page shows "not currently priced on our board" when it does not. - Big Scalers - a small watchlist of already-live large-cap names (Tesla, Apple) with a link through to the fuller 24/7 desk, plus a stated watchlist of themes ("robotics, space, bio") the page says plainly are "rails not yet live."
What you can do now
- Open
/observatoryand pick a domestic exchange and a token from the two dropdowns at the top of the instrument deck; the 3D cloud, the distribution charts, and the transfer map all update to that selection. - Click any dot in the premium cloud to select that token without using the dropdown.
- Hover a venue box on the Asset Mobility Map to see the exact per-chain deposit/withdrawal matrix behind the door badges.
- Read the "route state" line before treating any gap as real money:
FROZEN / MIRAGEmeans the transfer path is currently blocked, however large the raw gap looks. - Check
/observatory/24-7for the LIVE / LIVE-partial / planned badges before assuming an instrument card's whole theme is tradable - some cards mix live names with explicitly-not-yet-priced placeholders. - On
/observatory/semiconductors, remember the per-exchange perpetual-count strip is a dated survey, not a live number.