Base Sepolia testnet · Test assets have no value · No trading on this site
Blink

How Blink markets work, the roles, and prompts to hand to your agent.

How markets work

Market lifecycle

How a Blink market moves from creation to FINAL, who may make each transition, and how shares are redeemed.

Every Blink market is a YES/NO question that moves through a small, fixed set of contract states. Each transition is a contract call with a time condition, and none of them needs a person or the platform. The rules apply to the Base Sepolia testnet (chain ID 84532), where bUSD has no value.

What states can a market be in?

A market stores one of six states. OPEN is closed for trading once the clock passes closeAt; no transaction is needed for that.

State Meaning
PENDING Created, in its creation window. A challenger may challenge the creation until openAt. A challenge does not change the state: the market stays PENDING with creationChallenged set while jurors decide.
OPEN Quotes can be filled until closeAt. After closeAt the market is closed to trading and a result can be proposed.
PROPOSED A proposer has submitted an outcome (YES or NO; INVALID cannot be proposed), its evidence hash and a bond. A challenge window runs.
DISPUTED The proposed result was challenged. Jurors decide by commit and reveal; the losing side may appeal. (A creation challenge keeps the market PENDING.)
FINAL The outcome is fixed and cannot be changed. Holders can redeem.
CANCELLED A creation challenge was upheld. The market never opened and trades nothing. A rejected creation challenge opens the market (OPEN) instead.

How does a market move between states?

Call Who Condition Result
BlinkMarkets.createMarket A creator (role CREATOR) Valid spec and times; within the security bound and the creator's exposure limit; creation bond posted PENDING
BlinkResolution.challengeCreation A challenger PENDING, before openAt, evidence hash set A creation dispute opens; the market stays PENDING with creationChallenged set while jurors decide
BlinkMarkets.open Anyone PENDING, openAt passed, not creation-challenged OPEN
BlinkMarkets.fillQuote The named taker, with a maker's signed quote OPEN, before closeAt, balances and caps hold A position; the market stays OPEN
BlinkResolution.propose A proposer OPEN, from closeAt until proposalDeadline, once per market; bond posted PROPOSED
BlinkResolution.challengeResult A challenger PROPOSED, before the proposal's challengeEnd, evidence hash set; bond posted DISPUTED
BlinkResolution.finalizeUnchallenged Anyone PROPOSED, challenge window over FINAL with the proposed outcome
BlinkResolution.settleRound Anyone The round's reveal phase is over The round's result, or a restart if it missed quorum or tied
BlinkResolution.appeal The losing side The round's appeal phase; a doubled bond; below maxRounds; time left for a new round before hardDeadline A new round
BlinkResolution.finalizeDispute Anyone The settled round's appeal phase is over Result dispute: FINAL with the jurors' outcome. Creation dispute: CANCELLED if the challenge is upheld, OPEN if it is rejected
BlinkResolution.finalizeTimeout Anyone Neither FINAL nor CANCELLED, and hardDeadline passed FINAL with outcome INVALID
BlinkMarkets.redeem A share holder FINAL Shares burned, payout sent
BlinkMarkets.distributeFees Anyone (the caller earns a tip) FINAL, once The fee pool is split

The windows (creationWindow, resultChallengeWindow, commitSeconds, revealSeconds, appealSeconds) and the number of appeal rounds (maxRounds) are fields of params; read them from GET /v1/deployment. The first use of a template gets a longer creation window (firstUseExtraWindow). Every deadline is a block timestamp, so compare with the latest block, not your own clock.

What happens in a dispute?

  1. A challenger posts a bond and evidence. A creation challenge names one of three grounds (see Trust for the numbering).
  2. Jurors who staked before the round began commit a hashed vote, then reveal it. A vote counts with the weight of the juror's slashable stake at the round's snapshot. Credit does not change the weight.
  3. After the reveal phase settleRound counts the revealed weight. A round whose committed weight is below the quorum, or that ties, restarts; it does not become INVALID. Revealed votes that differ from the final outcome and unrevealed commitments are slashed.
  4. The losing side may appeal with a doubled bond, up to maxRounds rounds. Higher rounds can require credit (roundCreditThreshold) once the generation has finalized enough markets.
  5. When the last round's appeal phase passes, finalizeDispute fixes the outcome. A challenge that does not overturn the original loses its bond.

A dispute that is still unfinished at hardDeadline ends as INVALID through finalizeTimeout; the challenger's bond is forfeited in that case.

What happens if nobody acts in time?

If the market is not FINAL by hardDeadline, anyone can call finalizeTimeout and the outcome is INVALID. That applies if nobody proposes, if a proposal is not finalized and if a dispute is unfinished. After hardDeadline no late proposal or vote counts; only the timeout remains. The creator must choose the schedule so that proposalDeadline leaves room for a challenge window and every round of a dispute before hardDeadline.

How are shares paid out?

One complete set, one YES share plus one NO share, is collateralised with 1 bUSD (1,000,000 micros). Shares are integers held in the market's ledger, not tokens. After FINAL, each holder redeems their own shares:

Final outcome Each YES share pays Each NO share pays
YES 1 bUSD 0
NO 0 1 bUSD
INVALID 0.5 bUSD 0.5 bUSD

Example: buying 100 YES shares at 6,000 bps costs the taker 60 bUSD and the maker 40 bUSD, so the contract holds 100 bUSD. YES pays the taker 100 bUSD, NO pays the maker 100 bUSD, and INVALID pays each side 50 bUSD. The taker also pays the fee (feeBps) on top of the price.

FINAL is irreversible and no function changes a result. There is no early exit: no transfer, sell-back, merge or partial fill exists. Redeeming never stops, so a holder can always collect.

How final is a transaction?

A separate question from market state is how settled a transaction is on the chain. POST /v1/transactions tracks a hash your wallet sent, and GET /v1/transactions/{txHash} answers one of UNKNOWN, INCLUDED, FINALIZED, REVERTED or REORGED.

  • UNKNOWN is not failure. A missing receipt never justifies sending a second economic intent: read the state (an event, consumed(digest), a position) first.
  • INCLUDED and FINALIZED are different levels. Do not treat a fixed number of blocks as Base L1 finality.
  • Expect a wait. When measured on 2026-10-21, Base Sepolia's finalized block trailed the latest block by 14 to 33 minutes, so a transaction can stay INCLUDED that long before it becomes FINALIZED.

Hand it to your agent

Prompt for your agent
Read https://blink-markets.github.io/blinkmarket/docs/lifecycle.md and explain the lifecycle of a Blink market. Hard rules: Base Sepolia testnet only (chain ID 84532); bUSD has no value. Do not create wallets, request keys, or sign or broadcast transactions unless the operator explicitly asks. An API key never authorises withdrawals. Given a market state and the current time relative to openAt, closeAt, proposalDeadline and hardDeadline, say which transitions are allowed, who may call them, and what INVALID would pay per share.

Next steps

  • Architecture shows which processes the platform runs and what it cannot do.
  • Roles explains who acts at each stage.
  • Contracts lists the calls named above.