# Sun: The Source of Life on the Farm

The Sun is the native timekeeping mechanism fueling Pinto’s autonomous adjustments, giving order and life to the protocol. The protocol requires a way to automatically trigger and pay for protocol adjustments. The Sun handles both of these requirements. 

### **Timekeeping**

Time in the Pinto protocol is measured in Seasons. Every Season lasts \~1 hour. Pinto uses Base blocks as a proxy for time. Due to the consistent time between Base blocks, the protocol can accurately calculate the time based on the Base block number. Once the Base block number has eclipsed the threshold indicating the passage of the top of the next hour, anyone can call the `gm()` function to trigger the Sunrise that begins the next Season.

The first Season began when Pinto was deployed on November 19, 2024 at 17:00 UTC.

### **Incentivizing The Sunrise**

In order to incentivize the `gm()` function call while minimizing the cost to the protocol for each Sunrise, the protocol offers a reward in the form of newly minted Pinto for successfully triggering the Sunrise. The award starts at 1 Pinto and increases by 1.0201% for each successive block beyond the threshold that elapses without a successful `gm()` call, ensuring that the protocol pays as little as possible without the Sunrise occurring more than a short period of time after the top of each hour.

### **Changes to the Protocol**

Upon each Sunrise, the protocol:

1. Increments the Season counter;
2. Calculates TWA∆P, the sum of the time weighted average shortages or excesses of Pinto across liquidity pools on the [Minting Whitelist](https://docs.pinto.money/responding-to-state/minting#current-minting-whitelist);
3. Updates the [Maximum Temperature](https://docs.pinto.money/field-the-most-innovative-lending-facility-in-crypto#fine-tuning-the-field-efficient-borrowing-in-practice);
4. Updates the [Crop Ratio](https://docs.pinto.money/responding-to-state/crop-ratio-changes);
5. Updates the [Gauge Points](https://docs.pinto.money/silo-the-perfect-complement-to-credit/optimizing-liquidity-distribution-via-the-seed-gauge-system#lp-distribution-seed-gauge-points);
6. Updates the [Silo](https://docs.pinto.money/pinto-mechanics/silo-the-perfect-complement-to-credit) to issue Stalk that grows from Seeds;
7. Starts or stops the [Rain](https://docs.pinto.money/resources/glossary#rain), if applicable;
8. Starts or stops the [Flood](https://docs.pinto.money/responding-to-state/flood), if applicable;
9. Sets the supply of [available Soil](https://docs.pinto.money/field-the-most-innovative-lending-facility-in-crypto/the-field-simply-put#soil);
10. Mints Pinto based on TWA∆P to the appropriate [Shipping Routes](https://docs.pinto.money/responding-to-state/minting#shipping-routes); and
11. Awards Pinto to the address that successfully called the `gm()` function.

The Sun powers the constant dynamism of Pinto, enabling the protocol to autonomously respond to market conditions quickly and cheaply.