For consumers
Suggested bid = current market rate × 1.05. A 5% premium over average ensures your job matches quickly without overpaying. You can always go lower and wait for a cheaper Island.
01 — The Model
Ask-price auction
Every match follows the same rule: the consumer pays the Island's asking price, never more than their bid.
Islands set asking prices
Each Island posts a per-Cargo asking price based on their hardware costs, electricity, and desired margin. They can adjust anytime.
Consumers set bid ceilings
Set a maximum price per Cargo type. The coordinator only matches you with Islands at or below your budget. You can also bid per-job.
Coordinator clears the match
The coordinator finds the cheapest willing Island for each job. Clearing price = the Island's asking price. You never pay your full bid if cheaper options exist.
02 — Bid Resolution
How your price is determined
The system resolves a bid for every job, using a fallback chain so you always get a fair price.
1. Explicit job bidIf you set a price on this specific job, that's used first
2. Your saved preferenceYour default max price for this Cargo type
3. Current market rateAverage clearing price from recent jobs on the exchange
4. Cargo default priceThe workload's base price — always a safe fallback
Set it once, forget it
Most consumers set a bid preference per Cargo type and leave it. The coordinator uses your preference for every job, finds the cheapest Island willing to accept it, and charges you their asking price — not your maximum.
If you want more control, override on individual jobs. The system always picks the lowest clearing price available within your budget.
03 — Hardware Economics
Better hardware, higher rates
GPU quality sets each Island's natural price range. Consumers choose between budget and performance.
| Tier | Hardware | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | H100, A100, RTX 4090 | 2.0x |
| High-End | RTX 3090, RTX 4080, A6000 | 1.5x |
| Mid-Range | RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 4070 | 1.2x |
| Entry | RTX 3060, GTX 1080 Ti | 1.0x |
| CPU-only | No GPU | 0.5x |
Hardware sets the floor, the market sets the price
Tier multipliers reflect the real cost difference between running inference on an H100 versus a GTX 1080 Ti. An Island with enterprise hardware can ask 2x the base rate and still be competitive — they deliver faster inference.
Consumers on a budget can target entry-tier Islands at 1.0x or even CPU-only at 0.5x for lighter workloads. The exchange surfaces all options transparently.
04 — Market Dynamics
A volatile, self-correcting market
Prices move with real-world conditions. That's the point.
Availability
Islands come and go. A home GPU in Berlin is online evenings; a rack server in Zurich runs 24/7. Supply shifts throughout the day, and prices adjust with it.
Energy costs
Electricity prices vary by region and time of day. Islands in off-peak hours or cheap-energy regions can undercut competitors and capture more jobs.
Hardware costs
GPU depreciation is real. Islands amortize their hardware investment over time. As GPUs age and new cards ship, the supply curve shifts and prices fall.
Regional demand
A metro with many consumers and few Islands sees higher rates. More Islands joining that region pushes prices down. Geography matters.
Demand spikes
When a product launch drives traffic, demand surges. The exchange responds: prices tick up, incentivizing more Islands online, and equilibrium is restored.
Karma gating
New Islands must earn 10+ karma (about 10 hours of successful compute) before they can receive payouts. Reliability is a prerequisite, not a luxury.
05 — Surge Pricing
When demand exceeds supply
If queued jobs exceed twice the available Island capacity, a 25% surge multiplier kicks in. This is automatic and transparent — the exchange UI shows when surge is active.
Surge pricing serves two purposes: it incentivizes more Islands to come online during peaks, and it prioritizes price-insensitive jobs that need to run now. As capacity normalizes, the multiplier drops back to 1.0x.
- Trigger: queue depth > 2x available capacity
- Multiplier: 1.25x (25% increase)
- Cached for 30 seconds to prevent thrashing
- Visible on the exchange dashboard
Example: Peak Demand
80 jobs queued30 Islands with capacity
Ratio: 2.67x > thresholdSurge pricing activates
Market rate: 0.12 → 0.15 credits25% surge applied until capacity normalizes
06 — The Dashboard
Full transparency, real time
The Compute Exchange dashboard is public. Anyone can see current rates, historical trends, and order book depth.
Live market rates
Current clearing price, average ask, average bid, active supply and demand counts, and jobs cleared — updated every 30 seconds.
Price history
Charts showing avg, min, max, and median clearing prices over 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. See how supply and demand evolved.
Order book
Histogram of Islands' asking prices, bucketed by range. See how many Islands offer compute at each price level across the network.
07 — Price Guidance
We suggest, you decide
The platform offers suggested prices for both sides, but never forces them.
For Islands
Suggested ask = current market rate × hardware tier multiplier. An RTX 4090 (2.0x) is guided to ask twice the base rate. Set it higher to earn more per job, lower to win more jobs.
The exchange is live
During the beta, all credits are virtual — no real money changes hands. But the market mechanics are real: bid, ask, and match just like production.