What can users do during/after a fork?
The whitepaper says:
When a fork is initiated, the parent universe becomes permanently locked. In a locked universe, no new markets may be created and no REP can be staked on any market. Therefore markets in a locked universe cannot be finalized. However, users may continue trading shares in markets in locked universes. In order for markets or REP tokens in the locked universe to be useful, they must first be migrated to a child universe.
Then, what is a locked universe? And what can users do in the parent universe and child universes specifically? The purpose of this page is to clear up those questions.
Summary
From a conclusion, when a fork starts, in the parent universe, REP cannot be staked on any market and markets cannot be finalized, in addition to that, new markets cannot be created. And REP holders can migrate their REP from the parent universe to a child universe only during the fork.
On the other hand, in child universes, users can do anything right after it is created.
| Action | Before a Fork Starts |
During a Fork | After a Fork Ends |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | Child | Parent | Child | Parent | Child | ||
| Market | Creation | ✅ | - | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Trading Share | ✅ | - | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Settlement | ✅ | - | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Finalization | ✅ | - | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| Reporting | Initial Reporting | ✅ | - | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Disputing | ✅ | - | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | |
| Participation Token | Purchasing | ✅ | - | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Redeeming | ✅ | - | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Migrate REP from Parent to Child | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ||||
Now let’s break it down into each phase and see more details.
Before a Fork Starts
Before a fork, there are no restrictions in the parent universe, however REP cannot be migrated since a fork has not started. And child universes are not yet created at this point.
During a Fork
“During a fork” means “during the forking period”. Only during this period, REP in the parent universe can be migrated to one of the child universes (See to-do’s for details). REP holders cannot stake REP on any market in the parent universe, since REP in the parent universe needs to be migrated. Therefore, markets in the parent universe are never finalized. And users may not create new markets in the parent univese after a fork starts.
Even if a market in the parent universe has not been migrated to the winning universe, users may trade and settle their shares on the market. It does not matter whether the market is already finalized or not, users can do those on any market in the parent universe. Trading in the parent universe, traders pay creator fee and reporting fee, and those fees are added to reporting fee pool. Users may redeem their participation tokens but may not purchase them, since participation tokens are purchased in exchage for REP but those REP need to be migrated to a child universe.
Note: Regarding the pooled fees, there is unfortunately a problem. Because settlement fees for markets that finalized prior to the fork will go to the reporting fee pool on the parent universe and if all honest REP migrates to a child universe during the fork, all of those fees will be stuck in the parent universe.
In child universes, there are no restrictions. It doesn’t matter whether a child universe is winning one or losing one. You can do everything on it as soon as it is created.
Note: child universes are not created as soon as a fork starts, they are created when the first time REP is migrated to them (See migration of the objects for details).
After a Fork Ends
After the forking period, what users can do in the parent universe is the same as during the forking period except that REP holders cannot migrate their REP to any child universe.
In child universes, continuing from during the forking period, there are no restrictions.