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This page walks through the complete lifecycle of a Crunch. Understanding these phases is essential for managing your competition correctly.
The Coordinator Platform is the recommended way to manage the Crunch lifecycle. It provides a web interface for every phase — from creating your Crunch to running checkpoints and monitoring payouts. All actions are also available via the CLI for scripting and automation.

Lifecycle phases

Every Crunch moves through these phases in order:
1

Funding

After creation, you deposit USDC into the competition’s escrow wallet. These funds are locked for the duration of the competition and are used for participant payouts and protocol fees.
Navigate to your Crunch in the Coordinator Platform and use the funding interface to deposit USDC.
2

Activation and registration

You start the competition, and it begins accepting participants. Crunchers can register, accept the terms, access the dataset, and start submitting models.
Start your Crunch from the competition overview page in the Coordinator Platform.
3

Competition

This is the active phase where models compete, get scored, and earn rewards. How this works depends on your Crunch design:
  • Live data — models are continuously evaluated against a live data stream, with payouts at regular intervals (e.g., weekly)
  • Batch/holdout data — models are evaluated against a held-out dataset at the end of the competition
During this phase, the cycle repeats:

Development

Crunchers build and refine their models.

Submission

Models are submitted for evaluation.

Evaluation

Models run against live or holdout data. For live competitions, this is continuous.
4

Scoring

Your Crunch Node computes performance metrics, rankings, and rewards.
5

Payout

You run a checkpoint to distribute rewards on-chain. Participants can then claim their prizes through the Tournament Hub.
Create checkpoints from the checkpoints page of your Crunch in the Coordinator Platform.
Steps marked with are performed by Crunchers. Scoring and payouts are your responsibility as the Coordinator.
4

Completion

You end the competition. No new registrations or submissions are accepted, but participants can still claim unclaimed prizes for a limited period.
End the competition from the overview page in the Coordinator Platform.
5

Settlement

Protocol fees are processed and paid to the Foundation.
6

Closure

After a defined waiting period, the competition is fully closed. Any unclaimed prizes can no longer be claimed.
7

Withdrawal

You can withdraw any remaining funds from the competition escrow wallet.
Withdraw remaining funds from the financial management section of your Crunch in the Coordinator Platform.

What’s next