Disputes

A dispute occurs when the channel participants cannot agree on the current state. Say for example Bob is sure that he has 5 ETH but Alice insists that he has only 4 ETH.

Disputes are resolved on-chain. The Perun protocols guarantee that the most recent state agreed to by all channel participants can be redeemed. Disputes are handled by the Adjudicator contract which determines the valid state by comparing the version numbers of the provided channel states.

A dispute is raised as soon as one participant registers a non-final state in the Adjudicator. The other participant then has challengeDuration-seconds time to react by submitting a newer state to prove that he is honest and knows a newer valid state. If the other participant cannot do this, he loses the dispute and the first state is accepted as final. The disputed channel is then settled and therefore closed.

Note

The challengeDuration is part of the channel proposal and is agreed upon by both participants.