Periods and Coverage Cycles
Firelight organizes time into fixed 30-day periods. Coverage, pricing, and capacity all align to period boundaries. This creates predictable cycles for program operators, stakers, and the Risk Consortium.
Why periods
Periods serve three purposes:
Predictable pricing. On-chain pricing parameters refresh every 30 days. Program operators know that a quote reflects the current period's published rates.
Fair capacity allocation. Coverage demand and supply are matched at period boundaries rather than continuously, which removes race conditions and enables pro-rata allocation under oversubscription.
Bounded risk windows. A 30-day coverage period limits the period during which a single set of coverage terms applies, reducing the protocol's exposure to stale assumptions.
Period boundary sequence
At each period boundary, the following happens in sequence:
Pricing refresh. The Cover Registry is updated with new base premium rates and available limits by protocol for each approved market.
Capacity calculation. The protocol computes available coverage capacity based on staked capital, the First-Loss Buffer, and effective leverage.
Renewal matching. Existing coverage holders who opted to renew are matched first. If renewal demand exceeds capacity, allocations are pro-rated by each holder's prior-period coverage amount.
New order matching. Remaining capacity is allocated to new orders, pro-rated by requested amount if demand exceeds capacity.
Premium settlement. Premiums for matched orders settle from the program operator's approved balance to the reward pool. Unmatched or partially matched orders receive proportional refunds.
Coverage activation. Matched coverage is issued as an on-chain coverage token and becomes active for the new period.
Period settlement is deterministic with respect to the period start timestamp. Deployments and withdrawals submitted after a period has started do not affect the current period's settlement; they are picked up in the next period's capacity calculation. This makes each period's outcomes reproducible from its starting state.
Mid-period mechanics
Most operational activity happens at period boundaries, but certain components run continuously inside a period.
Deployments
Staker deployments do not wait for a period boundary, but they do move through screening before activation. Rewards begin only after the deployment becomes active. Deployments pause whenever an incident is opened, so capital entering after an incident does not absorb its loss. Deployments reopen when the slash settles, the incident is cancelled, or the next period begins. See Claims Process.
Withdrawals
Withdrawal requests can be initiated at any time, but claimable assets only become available after a unstaking window. Depending on when the request is submitted, the total effective lock can extend into the following period. The unstaking window for the coverage vault is longer than in Phase 1, to align with coverage obligations (see Deployments and Withdrawals).
Coverage scope within a period
A Cover Token covers the markets declared when cover is enabled, up to the allocated amounts, for the full 30-day period. Coverage does not float between markets mid-period: a position that moves into a market not declared in the cover token is not covered for that allocation until the program operator renews with an updated declaration at the next boundary.
Renewal vs. new order priority
Renewals are processed before new orders at every boundary. This protects existing coverage holders from being displaced by incoming demand and gives program operators a reliable path to continuous coverage across periods. Within the renewal queue, allocation is pro-rata by prior-period coverage amount. First-come-first-served behavior is not used anywhere in the matching process.
Why 30 days
A 30-day period balances faster feedback on pricing and capacity against operational overhead and program operator friction, and aligns with institutional planning cycles.
Where to read next
Deployments and Withdrawals covers the supply-side mechanics of activation and unstaking.
Pricing explains how period-refreshed parameters produce a program operator quote.
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