A machine on a six-hour rhythm.
StonkPress evaluates its conditions in six-hour runs, starting two hours after genesis ends. The point is simple: work toward PAPER's SPY ratio without pretending the market is static.
Above target
Target is 1.00×: one SPY to 10,000 PAPER. A run prints only when PAPER holds above the expansion threshold, set at 1.01×. Between target and threshold the press neither prints nor shreds.
When a run prints, it prints PAPER to clamped PLATE. A run above the threshold prints the full per-run maximum (0.11% of circulating PAPER as deployed, reviewed in the first week), whatever the size of the move, and it does not promise a particular result. The maximum steps down as supply grows and through the ratchet. What share of a print actually reaches a clamped position, and the lockups that govern claiming it, are covered in Rewards & Clamping.
The expansion ratchet
Every 10 consecutive printing runs cut the maximum print by 10% of its original value, permanently, starting with the tenth. The cuts add up in equal steps, down to a floor of 0.01% of supply per run, so the maximum never reaches nothing. A single run at or below the 1.01× threshold resets the streak counter, but not the cuts. The ratchet only fires on an unbroken run of prints, not a lifetime total. This is a deliberate longevity control: it stops one sustained above-target stretch from maximizing prints indefinitely.
Below target
Below target, printing stops and the Shredder opens: PAPER can be burned for RECEIPT, which may be redeemed for PAPER only above the 1.01× threshold and when the redemption reserve can cover it. Redemption is not guaranteed. Buybacks are separate: standing buy orders at 0.95–1.0× target, plus discretionary purchases from the Ink Reserve by the reserve multisig. Bought-back PAPER is held.
The bootstrap window
The exception is the bootstrap window: the first 12 runs each print a fixed share of circulating PAPER regardless of target. The share is set before runs begin. If the price-move breaker is switched on, it stays inactive for those 12 runs and two more.
Who keeps it running
Reading the price and advancing a run are both public functions: anyone can call them once they're due, not only an operator. That openness is a safety property, since no single party can silently stop them, but it also means both depend on someone actually calling them. If nobody keeps the price fed, it goes stale and runs halt, by design. If nobody advances a run once it's due, that run's action simply waits until someone does; it is not lost.
A stale or missing price read halts a run; the circuit breaker, once switched on, skips a run after a large move. Read the Ink Reserve, oracle & circuit breakers, and the Front Page.