Skip to content
VirtEngine by DET.io Docs

How the Marketplace Works

Every workload on VirtEngine moves through the same on-chain lifecycle. This page follows a deployment from the tenant’s first transaction to the provider’s final payout.

Tenant order x/deployment · x/market Provider bids price + attributes Lease winning bid matched Deploy provider daemon Usage reports signed, hourly Settlement x/settlement · disputes Escrow payout x/escrow · x/settlement 1 ORDER 2 BID 3 LEASE 4 DEPLOY 5 REPORT 6 SETTLE 7 PAY
The marketplace lifecycle: orders attract bids, the winning bid forms a lease, and verified usage drives escrow settlement.

The lifecycle, step by step

Section titled “The lifecycle, step by step”

  1. Tenant creates an order. The tenant describes the workload — resources, placement requirements, and pricing bounds — and submits it on-chain. The x/deployment module records the deployment; x/market opens an order against it. The tenant also funds an escrow account that will pay for the lease (see Escrow & Settlement).

  2. Providers bid. Registered providers (see x/provider) whose inventory matches the order’s requirements respond with priced bids. Bids carry the provider’s attributes, so tenants can weigh audits, benchmarks, reviews, and region alongside price.

  3. A lease is formed. The order is matched to a winning bid and x/market creates a lease binding tenant, provider, and price. The lease is the billing anchor: everything that follows references it.

  4. The provider deploys. The off-chain provider daemon observes the lease and schedules the workload onto the provider’s infrastructure — Kubernetes for containerized workloads, or SLURM/MOAB/Open OnDemand clusters for HPC jobs.

  5. Usage is metered and reported. The provider daemon collects per-workload metrics on a schedule (hourly by default), converts them into signed usage records, runs anomaly detection, and submits them on-chain in batches via MsgRecordUsage. See Usage Reporting.

  6. Settlement converts usage into payment. After a 24-hour dispute window, undisputed usage records are settled by x/settlement into billable line items. The tenant can dispute suspect records inside the window; corrections create new records referencing the original.

  7. Escrow pays out. x/escrow transfers the agreed funds from the tenant’s escrow account to the provider at the full agreed amount in VCC. Validator transaction fees apply only to the chain messages. If escrow runs dry, the lease closes.

What makes this trustworthy

Section titled “What makes this trustworthy”
  • Signed usage — every usage record is cryptographically signed by the provider, and fraud checks validate timestamps, durations, and resource ratios before settlement.
  • Dispute window — tenants get a guaranteed window to challenge usage before funds move.
  • Reputation on-chain — audits (x/audit), benchmarks (x/benchmark), and reviews (x/review) give tenants verifiable signals when choosing providers.
  • Optional identity signals — VEID is not a universal marketplace prerequisite. A supported offer may disclose a specific proof requirement; buyers can choose offers that do not require it (see VEID Overview).
Section titled “Related reading”