Skip to main content
Cards, price feeds, registries, relays, and solvers help coordinate a route. Only the contract you derive and fund enforces settlement.

​
What Binds

Everything before funding is advisory. Registry entries go stale, feeds can be wrong, advertisements are self-asserted, relays can drop messages, and a bid commits nothing. None of them can move funds; the worst a bad one costs is a failed attempt or a worse price. A signed quote binds the solver’s terms for its validity window — not completion. In an Arkade market nothing binds before funding. After funding, the contract decides the outcomes.

​
Deriving the Contract

The client builds every settlement contract itself. Anything a solver returns is comparison data; a mismatch stops the flow. Each input comes from the party entitled to assert it:

​
Enforceability on Bitcoin

Interactive paths are ordinary Tapscript — signatures, hashlocks, and timelocks Bitcoin itself can verify. They keep the standard Arkade trust model: preconfirmed until the batch settles, enforceable through unilateral exit. Non-interactive paths let a party stay offline. Their constraints use introspection opcodes Bitcoin does not have, so the Emulator checks and co-signs each spend. On Bitcoin that leaf is just a key: the guarantee is not enforceable on L1, and if the Emulator will not sign, the path is unavailable. Treat non-interactive paths as convenience; where a profile offers both, the interactive path survives without the Emulator.

​
Corridor Routes

Two properties are specific to this trust model: the full invoice reaches only the selected solver, and the solver can claim the lockup only after learning the preimage by paying the invoice. A published request reveals its pair and size to the relays. An addressed request hides its content but not its metadata. Signed bids and quotes prove who committed to what; they do not bond performance. The receive service waits for the client to claim, so the wallet stays online for that step.

​
Product Policy

An application may pin solvers, follow curated registries, or allow open discovery. Contract guarantees are identical in every case; selection and ranking are application policy, and competition does not guarantee best execution. Protocol, solver, client, and wallet work ship independently — see Implementation Status.

​
Sources