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How the Marketplace Works

Galadriel operates as a two-sided marketplace connecting GPU providers (supply) with ML engineers and companies (demand). Prices are determined by market forces through a continuous double auction using a central limit order book (CLOB), similar to financial exchanges.

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Marketplace Basics

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Two-Sided Market

Supply Side (Providers)          Orderbook          Demand Side (Customers)
─────────────────────            ────────           ─────────────────────────
"I'll sell 8 GPUs                                   "I'll buy 16 GPUs
 at min $3.20/hr"          ────────────────>         at max $3.50/hr"
                           Match when feasible
                           <────────────────

Match occurs when: buyer_max_price >= seller_min_price
Matched price: seller's ask (buyer pays seller's price)
Key Principles:
  • Transparent pricing: Full orderbook visibility for all participants
  • Fair matching: Price-time priority (best price wins, ties broken by timestamp)
  • Low latency: Under 100ms order placement to match
  • Atomic transactions: All-or-nothing for multi-node orders
  • Anti-gaming: Rate limiting, price collars, wash trade prevention

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Order Types

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1. Market Order (Instant Fill)

Execute immediately at the best available price. 
galadriel order buy --gpu-type h100 --gpus 8 --duration 12h --type market
Characteristics:
  • ✅ Instant execution (guaranteed fill)
  • ✅ No waiting time
  • ⚠️ Pay current market price (may be higher)
  • 🎯 Use when: Need GPUs immediately, deadline-driven workloads
Example: 
Current best ask: $3.75/GPU/hr
Your order: 8 GPUs × 12h

✓ Matched immediately at $3.75/GPU/hr
✓ Total cost: $360 (8 × 12 × $3.75)
✓ Provisioning...

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2. Limit Order (Wait for Price)

Execute only at your specified price or better. 
galadriel order buy --gpu-type h100 --gpus 16 --duration 24h --price 3.50
Characteristics:
  • ✅ Control max price (never pay more than your limit)
  • ✅ Save 10-30% in off-peak hours
  • ⚠️ May not fill if price stays high
  • ⚠️ Waiting time (minutes to hours)
  • 🎯 Use when: Flexible timing, cost-sensitive workloads
Example: 
Order submitted to marketplace
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Your order: 16x H100 @ max $3.50/hr
Market price: $3.75/hr (you're $0.25 below)
Status: PENDING

Position in queue: #3
Estimated fill time: 2-4 hours
Expires in: 4 hours (auto-cancel if not filled)

💡 Tip: Market is trending down. Your order likely to fill.

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3. Flexible Timing Order (Best Price)

Execute anytime within a time window for optimal price. 
galadriel order buy --gpu-type h100 --gpus 8 --duration 8h --flex 48h --price 3.00
Characteristics:
  • ✅ Best price guarantee (within your time window)
  • ✅ Platform auto-schedules during low demand
  • ✅ Typical savings: 25-40%
  • ⚠️ Must be flexible on exact start time
  • 🎯 Use when: No time constraints, maximize savings
Example: 
Analyzing market patterns...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current price: $3.75/hr (above your max)
Tonight 10pm-6am: Expected $2.80-3.20/hr ✨
Tomorrow 2pm-6pm: Expected $3.60-4.00/hr

Recommended: Schedule for tonight 11pm
Expected price: $2.95/hr
Expected cost: $189 (vs $300 at current price)
Savings: $111 (37% off)

Create scheduled order? [Y/n]

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Orderbook Structure

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Example Orderbook

8xH100 | us-west-1 | 2025-11-11 14:00
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SELL ORDERS (Ask)                    PRICE
$4.20/hr: 32 GPUs available          ┃
$3.99/hr: 64 GPUs available          ┃
$3.80/hr: 16 GPUs available          ┃
$3.50/hr: 24 GPUs available          ┃ ← Best Ask: $3.50/hr
════════════════════════════════════════════════ ← Spread: $0.10
$3.40/hr: 16 GPUs wanted             ┃ ← Best Bid: $3.40/hr
$3.20/hr: 32 GPUs wanted             ┃
$3.00/hr: 48 GPUs wanted             ┃
$2.80/hr: 64 GPUs wanted             ┃

BUY ORDERS (Bid)

Last traded: $1.30/hr
24h volume: 2,400 GPU-hours
Market depth: 136 GPUs ask, 160 GPUs bid

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Key Terms

  • Best Bid: Highest price buyers are willing to pay ($3.40/hr in example)
  • Best Ask: Lowest price sellers are willing to accept ($3.50/hr in example)
  • Spread: Difference between best bid and ask ($0.10 in example)
  • Mid Price: Average of best bid and ask ((3.40+3.40 + 3.50) / 2 = $1.30)
  • Market Depth: Total GPUs available at each price level

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Matching Algorithm

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Price-Time Priority

Orders are matched using price-time priority:
  1. Price Priority: Best prices matched first
    • Buy orders: Highest price first
    • Sell orders: Lowest price first
  2. Time Priority: At the same price, earlier orders matched first (FIFO)
Example: 
Three buy orders at $3.50/hr:
1. Order A: 8 GPUs (submitted 10:00 AM)
2. Order B: 16 GPUs (submitted 10:05 AM)
3. Order C: 8 GPUs (submitted 10:10 AM)

Sell order arrives: 16 GPUs @ $3.50/hr

Match result:
- Order A: 8 GPUs matched (earliest)
- Order B: 8 GPUs matched (partial fill)
- Order C: 0 GPUs matched (waiting)

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Node Boundary Rounding

All orders must respect 8-GPU node boundaries: 
Requested: 10 GPUs → Rounded down to 8 GPUs (1 node)
Requested: 16 GPUs → Exact match, 2 nodes
Requested: 20 GPUs → Rounded down to 16 GPUs (2 nodes)
Requested: 24 GPUs → Exact match, 3 nodes

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Order Lifecycle

┌─────────────┐
│   CREATED   │  Order submitted via API
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       ↓
┌─────────────┐
│   PENDING   │  Waiting in orderbook
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       ├──────────────────────────┐
       │                          │
       ↓ (partial match)          ↓ (full match)
┌─────────────┐            ┌─────────────┐
│   PARTIAL   │            │   FILLED    │
└──────┬──────┘            └──────┬──────┘
       │                          │
       ↓ (rest filled)             ↓
┌─────────────┐            ┌─────────────┐
│   FILLED    │───────────>│ PROVISIONING│
└─────────────┘            └──────┬──────┘
                                  │
                                  ↓
                           ┌─────────────┐
                           │    ACTIVE   │  Lease created
                           └─────────────┘
Alternative endings:
  • CANCELLED: User cancels before fill
  • EXPIRED: Order expires (limit orders can have TTL)
  • FAILED: Provisioning failed after match

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Viewing the Orderbook

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CLI

# View orderbook
galadriel orderbook --gpu-type h100 --zone us-west-1

# With more depth
galadriel orderbook --gpu-type h100 --zone us-west-1 --depth 20

# Get price estimate for market order
galadriel prices estimate --gpu-type h100 --gpus 16 --zone us-west-1

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API

GET /api/v1/orderbook?instance_type=8xh100&zone=us-west-1&depth=10
Authorization: Bearer <token>

Response:
{
  "instance_type": "8xh100",
  "zone": "us-west-1",
  "timestamp": "2025-11-11T14:00:00Z",
  "market_depth": {
    "best_bid": 1.30,
    "best_ask": 1.40,
    "spread": 0.10,
    "mid_price": 1.35
  },
  "bids": [
    {"price": 1.30, "gpus": 24, "orders": 3},
    {"price": 1.25, "gpus": 16, "orders": 2}
  ],
  "asks": [
    {"price": 1.40, "gpus": 16, "orders": 2},
    {"price": 1.45, "gpus": 8, "orders": 1}
  ]
}

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Managing Orders

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Check Order Status

galadriel order get ord_abc123
Output: 
ORDER ID:     ord_abc123
TYPE:         limit
SIDE:         buy
GPU TYPE:     h100
GPU COUNT:    16
LIMIT PRICE:  $3.50/hr
STATUS:       partial
FILLED:       8/16 GPUs (50%)
AVG PRICE:    $1.30/hr
CREATED:      2h ago
EXPIRES:      in 2h

MATCHES:
  - 8 GPUs @ $1.30/hr (matched 1h ago)
    Lease: lse_xyz123

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Cancel Order

# Cancel entire order
galadriel order cancel ord_abc123

# Cancel remaining GPUs (keep partial fills)
galadriel order cancel ord_abc123 --keep-partial

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List Orders

# All pending orders
galadriel order list --status pending

# All orders (including filled/cancelled)
galadriel order list --status all

# Filter by side
galadriel order list --side buy

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Platform Fees

All transactions include a 10% platform fee: 
Example Transaction:
  Customer pays: $1.35/GPU/hr × 16 GPUs × 24h = $518.40
  Platform fee (10%): $51.84
  Provider receives (90%): $466.56
Fee Transparency:
  • Always shown before order confirmation
  • Included in total cost estimates
  • Clearly broken down in invoices
  • Applied to both primary and secondary (resale) markets

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Anti-Gaming Protections

Galadriel implements several protections to ensure fair markets:

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1. Minimum Order Value

Minimum: $10 total order value
Minimum duration: 1 hour

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2. Rate Limiting

Max orders per minute: 10
Max cancellations per minute: 20

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3. Price Collars

Orders cannot be more than ±50% of reference price
Reference price = last trade or mid-market price

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4. Wash Trade Prevention

Cannot match orders with yourself
Cannot trade within same organization

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Next Steps

Pricing Guide

Learn pricing strategies and save money

Cluster Specs

GPU types, system specs, and access model

Reselling Guide

Resell unused GPU time

API Reference

Complete REST API documentation