Expiry and settlement
An Isometric position has a fixed end. Between open and that end nothing is required from you, and nothing can be done to you.
The settlement time
The ticket shows Settles as a date and an hour. Settlement always lands on a whole hour, and each term has its own schedule so that many positions share the same settlement:
| Term | Settlement lands on |
| 1 day | The next 2-hour mark at least a day out |
| 3 days | The next 6-hour mark at least 3 days out |
| 7 days | The next 12-hour mark at least 7 days out |
| 30 days | The next 48-hour mark at least 30 days out |
That is why a "7 day" position sometimes settles a few hours after exactly seven days. The exact time is on the ticket before you confirm and in Portfolio after.
Shared settlement times keep settlement cheap and reliable: one transaction settles every position at the same hour and direction.
While the position is open
The position cannot be closed, resized, or liquidated. You can watch it in Portfolio, where each position shows:
- Mark, the current price.
- Open PnL at mark, what the position would pay if it settled at the current price, minus what you paid. This is a guide, not a price you can sell at. A position that is out of the money today is not a realised loss.
- Time remaining to settlement.
The pool set aside the full maximum payout when you opened. It stays locked for you until settlement, so the money to pay you is never in question.
At the settlement hour
One price decides the result: the Chainlink price recorded just before the settlement hour. The protocol looks for the last oracle update before the hour and the first update after it, and uses the one from before. Nobody chooses the price, including Isometric.
Anyone can trigger settlement once the hour has passed. Isometric runs a keeper that does it within minutes. Until it lands the position shows Settlement pending. A delay here does not change the result, because the price is already fixed.
After settlement
The outcome is one of three:
| Outcome | What happened | What you do |
| Worthless | The price finished on the wrong side of your worthless price | Nothing. The position is closed |
| Claimable | The price finished on your side and your payout is waiting | Wait for the automatic USDC payment, or claim in Portfolio |
| Claimed | Your payout has been sent | Nothing |
Payouts and claims explains how payouts arrive and when you need to claim.
What can delay settlement
- The oracle has not updated across the hour yet. Chainlink publishes when the price moves or on a heartbeat, so the bracketing update can arrive a little after the hour.
- The keeper is behind. Anyone can settle, so a stalled keeper delays a payout rather than blocking it.
- A price feed migration. Chainlink occasionally moves a feed to a new version. Settlement across that boundary waits for governance to approve the new feed.
None of these change what you are owed. Your payout is fixed by the settlement price, and the money backing it stays locked until you receive it.