Escalation Game
The Escalation Game gives a finished Statoblast market a local, REP-backed resolution path before a universe-wide fork is necessary. A report that nobody challenges wins three days after the first deposit opens the game.
For a binary launch question, suppose Yes has 8 REP, No has 5 REP, and Invalid has 2 REP. The median balance, 5 REP, is the game's binding capital: the stake the strongest challenger has committed, and the amount that sets the scheduled deadline. A deposit that raises only the leading Yes balance does not move that deadline; a deposit that raises Invalid above 5 REP raises the median and moves it later.
After the deadline, Yes wins only if it remains the unique strict leader. If two outcomes each reach the non-decision threshold before local finalization, the game records non-decision and the SecurityPool follows the Zoltar fork path. The threshold is half of Zoltar's fork threshold, rounded up, and is fixed when the game opens. A tie is never treated as a local winner.
For an ordinary game, the scheduled deadline is the last second before the forward attrition curve strictly exceeds the challenger’s balance. A continuation also observes its minimum response period. The game, reporter ledger, and settlement book use the same deadline, including any plateau caused by integer rounding. If a universe forks while its game remains unresolved, the parent’s curve stops at the recorded fork time. Later wall-clock time cannot finalize that parent. A carried game preserves its inherited elapsed time and stops again if its child universe forks, including when it resumes after that fork.
Any REP holder can fund a report from their wallet. After an unrelated fork, wallet reporting opens again once the carried game resumes. Reporting deposits are separate from underwriting principal. Each deposit must meet the start bond, the larger of 1 REP and one ten-millionth of the universe's theoretical REP supply when the pool was deployed, unless it exactly fills an outcome to the non-decision threshold.
Escalation
The first deposit after the question ends opens the game. Each deposit adds to its outcome's cumulative balance; it does not have to exceed the leader. Meanwhile the required support rises along a fixed curve over time. The scheduled deadline follows the strict forward crossing of binding capital, so it moves later only when a deposit raises the median balance. A challenger that stops adding REP lets the rising requirement pass its stake, and the leader wins.
Required support. Nothing is required for the first three days. From day 3 the requirement climbs from the start bond to the non-decision threshold, reaching it on day 52. The EscalationGame reference gives the exact curve.
Try a simplified escalation round
This simulator uses the contract model: a three-day activation delay, a 49-day escalation interval, and the fixed-point required-support curve. Change the configuration, then choose an outcome and requested deposit to see clipping, tie adjustment, acceptance, or rejection.
Game settings
Player positions
Player move
Timeline
How the game ends
The game ends in one of three ways:
- Strict local winner. A unique leading outcome can finalize once the scheduled deadline has passed and required support has overtaken binding capital, provided no fork interrupted the game.
- Local non-decision. Two outcomes reach the non-decision threshold. Statoblast uses its fork path instead of choosing one locally.
- Interruption by another fork. The pool's universe forks while the game remains unresolved. The game has no local result and continues in the child pools instead; see forks and migration.
Settlement rewards the side that held its ground. Winning deposits get their principal back plus a bonus. The runner-up's stake, the binding capital, pays for it: three fifths becomes the bonus pool and two fifths, the escalation haircut, is burned, unless the fork this game triggered already burned it as the fork haircut.
As ordinary reports increase the smallest of the three outcome balances, that increase leaves dispute escrow. The portfolio distributes it as separate REP income. The other two balances remain in escrow to cover any winning outcome. Final settlement burns any extra beyond its reserved liabilities; a game carried across a fork also burns its terminal residual.
The bonus is only available on the portion of winning deposits up to the reward-eligible cap, one and a half times binding capital; deposits beyond that cap simply get their principal back. Settlement also compares the universe's current fork threshold, in full, with the non-decision threshold the game fixed when it opened. If the current fork threshold is the lower of the two, every winning withdrawal is multiplied by the current fork threshold divided by that non-decision threshold, which can push the final transfer below principal. The comparison is skipped when the universe forked after the game ended. The EscalationGame reference works one payout through with exact numbers.
Escalation game continuation
When a fork interrupts an unresolved game, Statoblast's SecurityPoolForker restarts it in each child pool as a carried game with the parent's balances and elapsed time. In a child created by a fork on the pool's own question, the outcome is already fixed to that child's outcome, so the game only settles deposits on it. After an unrelated fork, the game resumes and can still be contested, with new wallet REP deposits. Depositors claim their positions in a child with a Merkle Mountain Range carry proof against the parent's deposit history, so no child copies every deposit onchain.