EXP-003 · LONG WAY ROUND
A settlement that must visit five networks before it counts
UNSTABLE INTERNAL
A single unit of value leaves Base, crosses four more networks in a fixed order, and is only considered settled when it arrives back where it started. Built to find out where the delay actually is. It is not where anyone said it was.
Every step is an intent, every hop is attested, and the whole loop is authorised by one smart account that will not sign the next leg until the previous one is final by that network's own definition of final. We assumed the slow part would be the optimistic leg with its week-long challenge window. It is not. The slow part is the seam between two systems that each consider themselves finished, and the loop has stalled there eleven times. We have left it stalling on purpose. UNSTABLE is the accurate status and we are not going to write it up as something calmer.
RECORD
- Chains
- base, arbitrum, optimism, solana, ethereum
- Protocols
- across, chainlink, safe
- Assets
- None
- Opened
- 2025-09-30
- Located
- CHAIN REACTOR ROOM
READINGS
RESEARCH LOG
- first circuit. 41 minutes. we were pleased and it was beginner's luck.
- stalled at hop 4. not a bug in hop 4. a disagreement about whether hop 3 had happened.
- rebuilt the whole thing around intents. faster, and it stalls in exactly the same place.
- circuit 900 returned to base and nobody noticed for two days.
- fourteenth re-entry logged on the reception board. leaving it up.