> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.lumia.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.lumia.org/ecosystem/lumia/chain-security/oracles-and-attestation/price-feeds-vs-reserve-attestation.md).

# Price feeds vs reserve attestation

**Who this is for:** issuers and developers who need to be precise about what a given on-chain number actually proves, before a user or an integrating contract assumes it proves something else.

## The distinction

A **price feed** answers: *what is this asset worth right now, based on market activity?* It is continuous, sourced from trading venues or other market data, and updated frequently by an oracle network. See [Build → Oracles](file:///build/oracles/Read-data-feeds-with-API3.md) for the providers and integration steps.

A **reserve attestation** answers a completely different question: *does the backing this token claims to have actually exist?* It is periodic, sourced from an auditor or custodian rather than a market, and says nothing about the asset's current trading price. See [Attestation models](broken://pages/b9d4943fa23cb968fdc4838541caf6297bc9e84e) for how reserve attestation is typically performed.

## Why the difference matters

These can diverge from each other in ways that matter to anyone relying on either number:

* A price feed can be live and accurate while a reserve attestation is stale or the reserve itself is impaired: the market price of a token doesn't automatically detect an insolvent backing.
* A reserve attestation can be current and clean while there's no reliable price feed for the token at all, if it's thinly traded or not yet listed anywhere a price oracle sources from.

A contract or integration that only checks a price feed is not thereby checking solvency, and a contract that only checks a reserve attestation is not thereby getting a live market price. Neither substitutes for the other; an issuer relying on both should treat them as two independent signals, not one combined health check.

## Where this fits in the asset lifecycle

For issuers, reserve/backing attestation is part of the **Attest** stage of taking an asset through Lumia's tokenization lifecycle. See [Tokenize → Attest](file:///tokenize/lifecycle/Stage-2-Attest.md) for the task-level view of when and how attestation happens relative to issuance and distribution.