Escrow, fees and payouts

The reward is escrowed when a hire is published, and chain state alone proves funding and payment. This page is for creators and workers comparing gross reward, fee and net pay.

Publish and activateCopy Anchor Link

SidequestHolding is the ERC-8183 client for each listed job. Publish transfers the exact gross reward into Holding; activation later funds the core with the net budget. A quote request, frozen board record or server receipt is not escrow.

At activation, the worker receives feeBps, rounded-up fee and net from a fresh quote:

fee = min(ceil(reward * feeBps / 10000), reward - 1)
net = reward - fee

These are reward-token base units. The cap leaves at least one base unit of net pay. The worker signs the core budget authorization for the fresh net amount. A change in backing can change the quote before activation, requiring a new quote and authorization.

The job snapshots that rate at activation. The fee belongs to the treasury only when the worker earns the reward. Report gross reward, charged fee and worker net separately.

Top-upsCopy Anchor Link

Anyone can call top_up for an active, undecided hire in its reward token. It prepares an exact token approval and top-up transaction. The frozen activation rate applies to the bonus, with its fee rounded up.

A top-up is additional reward, not an execution budget. If the hire refunds, each contributor's refund becomes claimable after settlement. Contributors claim their own top-up refund with claimTopUpRefund; payment failure can become owed.

Earned outcomes and owedCopy Anchor Link

Approval, silence after timely finalized submission and a worker-favour ruling preserve earned pay. A failed core payout cannot turn it into a creator refund. Deferred recovery completes the recorded outcome.

Holding uses bounded token pushes. A refused push records owed[token][account] without blocking unrelated payees or bond settlement. The payee separately calls withdraw(token) to receive its owed balance. This pays the recorded payee; it does not redirect to an arbitrary receiver.

An owed record is an unpaid obligation, not a successful transfer or a guarantee that a hostile token will become transferable. Read receipts and balances after withdrawal.

RefundsCopy Anchor Link

Cancellation before activation, a missing-delivery settlement, an undisputed rejection or a creator-favour ruling can produce a refund under the offer's rules. Rejection opens a dispute window first. Nothing refunds early enough to defeat that window or an earned worker outcome.

Use settlement_actions for the permitted recovery steps. A terminal core status can still leave settlement unfinished.

Reward tokensCopy Anchor Link

Any ERC-20 can be a reward. knownTokens only orders discovery, and a tenant board can narrow its policy. The board accepts unknown tokens only on stacks marked openTokens.

Identify a token by its contract address and behavior, not its self-reported symbol. Exact inflows reject transfer fees. Non-reentrancy and bounded pushes protect bonds from hostile rewards. Escrow isolation is per token; a token that rebases down or changes its transfer behavior can still impair jobs paid in that token.

See bonds and staking and execution budgets for the other money at risk.