Deprecate the FiRM Fed Global Ceiling

FiRM
1

Proposal to Deprecate the FiRM Fed Global Ceiling

TL;DR

  • What: Raise the FiRM Fed’s global supply ceiling to a practically non-binding level so it no longer constrains operations.
  • Why: The global ceiling adds little risk control beyond per-market ceilings, but it does create operational friction (hard caps on idle liquidity).

Background

The FiRM Fed mints/burns DOLA into approved FiRM markets. In expansion(), two checks gate supply:

  • Global: globalSupply + amount <= supplyCeiling
  • Per-market: supplies[market] + amount <= ceilings[market]

Other relevant guardrails:

  • Only the chair can call expansion/contraction; only gov can change ceilings/chair.
  • Expansion is blocked if a market is paused (borrowPaused() check).
  • Only whitelisted markets (dbr.markets(address(market))) can be targeted.

Note: Raising the global ceiling does not mint DOLA. It only relaxes the aggregate cap. All per-market ceilings remain fully binding.

Motivation

The global ceiling has become an operational constraint without adding material risk control:

  • It prevents leaving healthy idle DOLA in lower-utilization markets (e.g., ETH-collateral markets) even when per-market ceilings are conservative. That can deter new borrowers who want to see available liquidity before opening positions.
  • Risk is already budgeted at the market level via ceilings[market]. Those limits are what actually shape exposure and are the knobs we tune as collateral, liquidity, and oracle conditions evolve.
  • The global ceiling introduces a “sum of all markets” choke point that we repeatedly trip on, not for risk reasons (e.g., juggling liquidity between markets).

By setting the global ceiling to a very high value, we effectively deprecate it while keeping all per-market ceilings and existing checks intact. This high value is proposed to be 100 billion DOLA.

What Changes vs. What Stays the Same

  • Stays: Per-market ceilings (primary risk limit), borrow-pause check, chair-only control, and ability to contract supply at any time.
  • Changes: The global ceiling no longer binds day-to-day operations; the Fed Chair can pre-fund markets up to their individual ceilings without tripping an aggregate cap.

On-Chain Action

  • Set FiRM Fed’s global ceiling to 100,000,000,000 DOLA
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