Settlement on STRATO

STRATO is the settlement chain. The settlement contract on it is the exchange's source of truth: it records committed blocks, verifies their proofs, and holds the state root that every balance is ultimately measured against.

The flow

1. The sequencer commits a block: its transaction data is written to STRATO.
2. A prover proves the block and submits the proof.
3. The contract verifies the proof against the previous state root and records the new one. Balances in that block are now final.

Commits are frequent; proofs follow within minutes. A block that has been committed but not yet proven is visible to everyone but not yet final.

What the contract holds

• The state root after each proven block — a single hash that commits to every account and every market.
• The forced-inclusion queue — transactions submitted directly by users that every subsequent block must consume.
• The exit — the mechanism that pays an account's balance directly from the last proven state if the exchange stops.
• The collateral — USDλ credited by the bridge minter against proven deposits, released against proven withdrawals.

Why STRATO

Settlement on STRATO is priced per transaction rather than per unit of gas, which makes frequent block commits and proof verifications economical, and STRATO provides the light client that lets the settlement contract verify deposits made on Ethereum — Base and Linea are planned.