> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.atrum.fun/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Resolution

> How a market decides its outcome, and why no address can change it.

A market's outcome is a **computation, not a decision**.

## How it works

Every market commits to its question before betting opens. The commitment is a hash stored
immutably in the Vault, covering:

* which price feed
* the threshold, and the direction (`above` or `below`)
* **the exact timestamp** the price is read from
* how long an update may lag that timestamp

At resolution, anyone submits a signed price update. The resolver checks the supplied question
against the committed hash, verifies the signatures through Pyth, and compares. Then it sets
the outcome.

## What the caller cannot choose

Resolution is permissionless, which is only safe because the caller has no useful freedom:

* **Not the question** — the spec must hash to the vault's immutable commitment.
* **Not the timestamp** — it is inside that hash.
* **Not the price** — signatures are verified on-chain, and the update must be the *first* one
  at or after the target time.
* **Not the outcome** — it is a comparison.

<Note>
  The third point is subtle and worth spelling out. Pyth publishes roughly every 400ms, so a
  60-second window holds around 150 candidate prices. If any of them were acceptable, whoever
  called `resolve` could pick the one that suited them. Atrum instead pins the result to the
  **first** update at or after the target time, with proof that no earlier one exists — so there
  is nothing to choose.
</Note>

## Why the price must come from after betting closed

The resolver refuses any market whose target time is earlier than its betting close. A market
settled on a price that was already knowable while people were still betting is not a
prediction market — it is a payout to whoever checked.

## When a market cannot be answered

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart TD
  A["Betting closes"] --> B["Resolution window opens"]
  B --> C{"Signed price in<br/>the committed window?"}
  C -->|"yes"| D{"price vs threshold"}
  D -->|"above"| Y["YES"]
  D -->|"below or equal"| N["NO"]
  C -->|"no — feed delisted,<br/>no update landed"| E["Reverts.<br/>Permanently, by design."]
  E --> F{"Deadline passed?"}
  F -->|"not yet"| E
  F -->|"yes"| V["Anyone calls voidMarket<br/>everyone refunded 1:1"]

  style V stroke:#15803d,stroke-width:3px
  style E stroke:#b91c1c,stroke-width:2px
```

If a feed is delisted, or no signed update ever lands in the window, resolution reverts
permanently — by design, because that is the same property that makes it trustworthy.

So there is an escape hatch. If a market is still unresolved a fixed period after resolution
opened, **anyone** can void it and everyone is refunded 1:1, whichever side they backed.

It is deliberately not a control anyone can reach for:

* It refuses an already-resolved market, so nobody can void an outcome they dislike.
* It refuses before the deadline, so nobody can race a slow resolver.
* The resolver itself cannot declare a void.

There is no key, no committee and no judgement behind it — only the clock.