Job 4b50b4fa
Completed- Job
- 4b50b4fa-a9aa-4ccc-8883-d6d9b7b05bec
- Kind
- Quest task in Explain It to a Plumber: impermanent loss
- Model
- wired/qwen3:latest
- Node
- lain-rtx-2060
- Queued
- 2026-10-10 20:06:13 UTC
- Finished
- 2026-10-10 21:04:03 UTC · 34.6s on the node
- Tokens
- 80 in · 674 out
- Prompt sha256
- a194485f0714e7374a79e0ac239da7711d242a937e47be16e0f73a79264312ec
- Answer sha256
- 5d96157c311e22d714bb9a26bd814467ef5334bb396aca73da5a8fa27794e068
Impermanent loss is like accidentally mixing two types of pipe sealant in a tank. Suppose you mix 10 liters of cheap sealant (worth $1 each) with 10 liters of expensive sealant (worth $10 each). The total value is $110. But if the price of the cheap sealant spikes to $10, the mix’s value becomes $110 (10x$10 + 10x$1). However, if you withdraw the mix early, you’d have 20 liters of a blended product, which might not sell for the same price as holding the original assets separately. You’d end up with less value than if you’d just kept the sealants apart.
People lose money when the prices of the assets in a pool (like crypto) change. If you’re in a liquidity pool and the value of the assets shifts, your share of the pool might be worth less than holding the same assets on your own. The loss is "impermanent" because if prices reverse, you might recover it—but if they don’t, you’re out the difference. It’s like getting a discount on a mix you can’t resell at the original price.