Meal Advancement & Position States

TheFatCat moves forward through meal-by-meal accounting. Each time window is a Meal:

MEALS Meal Advancement and Position Activation

Previous meal closes ──► Current meal runs ──► Next meal begins
                         At least eight hours  Successful advance transaction
New position deposits ─► No current-meal share ► Joins at Notch 1

1. Cadence and Participation

A meal meets the time requirement after at least 8 hours.
Anyone can help maintain it: Public participants or official maintenance must still submit a successful transaction. Automation does not guarantee immediate or continuous availability.
How delays are handled: Each successful advance closes one meal and starts the next at the current time. Allocation counts at most 16 hours. A 48-hour stop does not create six meals at once or allocate 48 hours of budget. See FEED & Decentralized Maintenance.

2. What Is Recorded at a Meal’s Close?

The completed meal’s shares use its eligible position weights. New positions and later diet changes do not retroactively change participation in that meal.

3. How Does Seniority Increase?

An ordinary new position activates at Notch 1 when the next meal begins. Each completed active meal then adds one notch, up to 22. Continued participation at the cap does not raise it further. See Meals & Seniority.

4. Allocation and Receipt Are Different

Advancing a meal only determines the reward budget; funds remain in Belly. Purchases or fallback settlement must then complete before rewards become claimable. Settled rewards can be claimed separately, and principal redemption does not wait for these steps.