The 6-hour resolution timelock

Every market resolution on 4rho waits 6 hours between the proposal and finalization. Two different admins must sign the proposal, and any single admin can cancel the pending resolution during the timelock window.

This is the most important safety property of how 4rho settles.

Why the wait

Without a timelock, a single mistake or compromise — a fat-finger, a wrong outcome pulled from a feed, a stolen key — would settle incorrectly and irreversibly. With a timelock, there are 6 hours of public window for anyone (admins, traders, observers) to spot a problem and cancel.

Why two confirmations

Requiring two different admins to sign the proposal stops a single rogue or compromised admin from triggering a settlement on their own. They can't propose alone, and they can't unilaterally finalize either.

Why anyone can finalize

After the timelock expires with no cancellation, anyone can send the finalize transaction. They pay a tiny gas fee to do it. This is deliberate: the platform doesn't have to keep a hot-key online to push resolutions through, and resolutions can never get "stuck" if 4rho is briefly offline. The math is locked in by the proposal + confirmations; the finalize is just a public button.

Cancelling a proposal

Any admin can cancel a pending resolution before it's finalized. We do this if:

• The proposed outcome is wrong (e.g., the official result was updated).
• New information emerged that makes the outcome ambiguous.
• The proposal was made in error.

Cancellation puts the market back into the pending state, and a fresh proposal can be made.

If you believe a pending proposal is wrong, open a support ticket immediately with the market URL, the official source for the correct outcome, and any relevant context. The faster we hear about it, the more of the 6-hour window remains to act.

What you see

When a resolution is proposed, the market page shows a banner with:

• The proposed outcome (YES, NO, or void/refund).
• Who proposed it (admin role/identifier).
• A countdown timer to the earliest finalization time.

Once the timer hits zero, the market is finalizable. Once finalized, the winnings become claimable.

In numbers

• Timelock duration: 6 hours (21,600 seconds).
• Minimum confirmations: 2 — must come from different admins.
• Cancellation: any single admin, any time before finalization.

These values are encoded in the on-chain MarketFactory contract. You can read them directly from a block explorer if you want.