Protocol User Categories
Who are SCENARIO’s users and what are their roles?
Askers
- An asker is a user who wishes to be notified as soon as a scenario has occurred and/or when specific scenario conditions have been met.
- Askers fall into two categories:
- Asker-maker: a user who generates a new scenario on the platform by defining the parameters for their notification and paying to create a scenario pool.
- Asker-joiner: a user who 'joins in' by adding funds to an existing scenario pool because they also wish to be notified when that scenario’s conditions are met.
- Asker-maker: a user who generates a new scenario on the platform by defining the parameters for their notification and paying to create a scenario pool.
- Any user of the platform can act as an asker-maker or an asker-joiner at any time.
- Askers play a crucial role in populating the protocol with scenario pools, joining other user-created pools, and generating protocol revenue. At scale, askers are likely to constitute the greater majority of users; many askers may never engage with the full suite of protocol activities such as staking or confirming, instead accessing it only through more abstracted front-ends.
Confirmers
- A confirmer is a user who confirms that a scenario has occurred (i.e. that its conditions have been met).
- Confirmers fall into two categories:
- Confirmer-maker: a user who is first to state that a scenario’s conditions have been met.
- Confirmer-joiner: a user who ‘joins in’ by subsequently verifying that a scenario’s conditions have been met (i.e. by agreeing with the confirmer-maker).
- A scenario is not considered resolved until it has been verified by a set number of confirmer-joiners (as specified in the parameters set by the scenario’s asker-maker).
- Any user who meets the protocol's staking criteria can act as a confirmer-maker or a confirmer-joiner at any time.
- Confirmers play a crucial role in ‘keeping the machine running’ by resolving scenario pools and triggering notifications for askers. Confirmers are economically incentivised to perform this role to a high standard. Confirmers will usually be engaged users who are likely to represent a smaller percentage of all users once the protocol has scaled.
Arbiters
In addition to the askers and confirmers who form the two sides of the Scenario marketplace, there are also instances in which the protocol relies on users to act as arbiters.
Arbiters play an important role in finalising disputed scenarios. Arbiters are paid for their work, receiving a portion of the protocol's revenues.
Any user who is staking SNR tokens can be eligible to act as an arbiter when pools are disputed; however, not all stakers are eligible to arbitrate on all disputes.
The mechanisms behind arbitration are discussed in more detail in Tokenomics and Protocol Revenues.
Users of the protocol may at times fall under more than one of these three broad categories.