Oracle & Settlement Roadmap

Settlement is the single most important trust boundary in a prediction market. Today it is a signed transaction from the operator. The roadmap replaces that with a market for the truth.

Phase 1 · Operator as oracle (live)

• owner calls settle(poolId, winningOption, evidenceHash) after endTime
• The evidence hash is written to storage and emitted in PoolSettled
• The owner cannot bet from its own address; it can still resolve against users (documented)
• If the operator disappears for 30 days, anyone voids the market and refunds 100%

Phase 2 · Bonded resolution with a dispute window

• Proposer posts a bond and an outcome; a challenge window opens
• Challengers post a matching bond; escalation goes to an arbitrator (UMA-style optimistic oracle or a Kleros court)
• Wrong proposers lose the bond, which is paid to the challenger
• The 30-day escape hatch shortens, because resolution is now contested rather than trusted

Phase 3 · On-chain resolution market

The final form removes the operator from the critical path entirely: the resolution itself becomes a prediction market settled by a decentralised oracle, with the same evidence-hash discipline applied to every layer. At that point the sybil residual (F-01) disappears, because there is no privileged address left to exploit.