Escrow-backed agreements between players — how the money is held, how settlement works, and why there are no fines.
A contract is a promise to deliver goods by a date, with the money already on the table. The buyer pays into escrow when the contract is created; the seller delivers into that same escrow over time; and at the deadline it settles once, by itself.
How settlement works
Settlement reads one thing: how much of the agreed quantity actually arrived. The seller is released the share they delivered, and the buyer is refunded the share they did not receive. Those two add up to exactly what was escrowed — no coin is created, and none is destroyed.
Reasons do not enter into it
The settlement does not adjudicate excuses — not bad luck, not a full warehouse, not a market that moved. This sounds harsh and is actually the kindest available rule: it means nobody has to argue their case, nobody wins by arguing better, and the outcome is the same for a newcomer as for a veteran.
Reliability
Every settlement writes an objective record of what was delivered, and that record builds your reliability — a number other players can see before they agree to anything with you. It is earned by delivering, and it cannot be bought or talked up.