> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.galadriel.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How the Marketplace Works > Understanding Galadriel's orderbook-based GPU marketplace # 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. ## Marketplace Basics ### 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 ## Order Types ### 1. Market Order (Instant Fill) Execute immediately at the best available price. ```bash theme={null} 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... ``` ### 2. Limit Order (Wait for Price) Execute only at your specified price or better. ```bash theme={null} 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. ``` ### 3. Flexible Timing Order (Best Price) Execute anytime within a time window for optimal price. ```bash theme={null} 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] ``` ## Orderbook Structure ### 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 ``` ### 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 + $3.50) / 2 = \$1.30) * **Market Depth**: Total GPUs available at each price level ## Matching Algorithm ### 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) ``` ### 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 ``` ## 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 ## Viewing the Orderbook ### CLI ```bash theme={null} # 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 ``` ### API ```http theme={null} GET /api/v1/orderbook?instance_type=8xh100&zone=us-west-1&depth=10 Authorization: Bearer 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} ] } ``` ## Managing Orders ### Check Order Status ```bash theme={null} 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 ``` ### Cancel Order ```bash theme={null} # Cancel entire order galadriel order cancel ord_abc123 # Cancel remaining GPUs (keep partial fills) galadriel order cancel ord_abc123 --keep-partial ``` ### List Orders ```bash theme={null} # 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 ``` ## 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 ## Anti-Gaming Protections Galadriel implements several protections to ensure fair markets: ### 1. Minimum Order Value ``` Minimum: $10 total order value Minimum duration: 1 hour ``` ### 2. Rate Limiting ``` Max orders per minute: 10 Max cancellations per minute: 20 ``` ### 3. Price Collars ``` Orders cannot be more than ±50% of reference price Reference price = last trade or mid-market price ``` ### 4. Wash Trade Prevention ``` Cannot match orders with yourself Cannot trade within same organization ``` ## Next Steps Learn pricing strategies and save money GPU types, system specs, and access model Resell unused GPU time Complete REST API documentation