Slot 19288417 sealed on Fogo before my hedge cleared
I built the hedge assuming I had a second.
Not a full second. Just enough to see leg one confirm, push leg two, eat a little jitter.
On paper Fogo's finality sits around 1.3s when the network isn't choking. Tower BFT stacks votes. Lockout extends. Confirmation hardens. Dashboard green. Whatever.
I treated ~1.3s like slack.
Traffic spiked.
Throughput didn't drop. Fogo Deterministic Leader schedule clean. No replay noise. Tower kept stacking. Nothing obvious to blame.
First leg hit slot 19288417.
Hedge trigger fired. Hand over send... no. Too fast. Already inside finality? No. 1.28s. Checked again.
Vote lock extended to depth 32 in 1.28s. Vote arrived at +21ms. Felt wrong.
Second venue still mid-book update when lockout crossed supermajority.
I thought it was RPC lag. Switched endpoints. Same. Thought venue delay. Checked their feed delta. Stable. Then — looked at vote arrival density. Packed. No gaps. Fogo Confirmation window hadn't stretched under load. Tightened.
Votes came dense. No gaps to buy me time.
My hedge wasn't late. Fogo 40ms sub block times....
Calibrated to a window that no longer existed.
fogo SVM runtime TowerBFT doesn't drift. Compounds. Each vote narrows. Inclusion final. Pricing loop still breathing. Anyways...
I widened the model. Added cushion. More idle capital. Wider spreads. Lower turnover. Protection up. Edge thinner.
Uncertainty moved. Not in confirmation. In me.
Pulled Fogo confirmation paths after the burst. 1.29s, 1.31s, 1.27s. All inside spec. Unsettled. System behaved correctly.
My assumption didn't.
Next burst... not the 1.3s label. Lockout depth against hedge timer. Climbs faster than second leg clears: not early. Already sealed.