Misses and stale pools

What happens if someone skips a round deposit, or a pool never fills.

Goal

Know how misses are covered, where penalties go, and how to exit an unfilled pool.

Keep the recipient whole when an obligor does not deposit before tick.

If an obligor misses:

The contract uses their locked collateral to cover the owed per-round amount plus a 1% penalty.
Recovered assets go toward that round’s pot (via pool escrow).
Penalty shares move into the pool reserve — not to the protocol owner.
If locked shares cannot cover the full amount (underwater miss), remaining shares are redeemed into escrow, that member’s lock is cleared, and the round pot may be smaller than a full (N − 1) × per-round payout.

Honest participation is cheaper than missing: you still lose the obligation from collateral and pay the penalty into the reserve.

Case	Recipient pot	Misser
Solvent miss	Full (from deposits + collateral recovery)	Obligation covered; 1% to pool reserve
Underwater miss	May be reduced	Lock cleared after partial recovery

Recover collateral if the roster never fills.

A pending pool snapshots a stale time at create (default 7 days; owner may set 3–7 days for new pools).
After created + stale time, the pool is stale: new joins revert.
Each member can leave individually — locked pledge returns to free collateral.

Ignoring a miss — your collateral still pays; the reserve takes the penalty.
Leaving funds in a stale pool forever — leave to unlock free collateral.
Confusing miss penalties (pool reserve) with protocol yield or creation fees (owner).