Products and Instruments

In AlphaPoint software, a product is an asset that is tradable or paid out. A product might be a national currency, a crypto-currency, or something else such as a commodity. For example, a product might be a US Dollar or a New Zealand Dollar or a BitCoin or an ounce of gold. Transaction and withdrawal fees are denominated in products. (Products may be referred to as assets in some API calls.)

An instrument is a pair of exchanged products (or fractions of them). For example, US Dollar for BitCoin. In conventional investment parlance, a stock or a bond is called an instrument, but implicit in that is the potential exchange of one product for another (stock for dollars). AlphaPoint software thinks of that exchange as explicit, and separates product from instrument.