Streaming & Refunds

Streaming payments apply to the restaker share of service fees when a service has a TTL and streaming is enabled in the deployment. The goal is to distribute the restaker share over the lifetime of the service (value × time), rather than all at once.

When Streaming Is Used

When the protocol routes the restaker share to ServiceFeeDistributor, the distributor checks:

• service has ttl > 0
• StreamingPaymentManager is configured

If both are true, it creates a stream from max(now, createdAt) to createdAt + ttl. Otherwise, it distributes immediately.

Stream Creation and Drips

Streams are tracked per (serviceId, operator) and drip linearly over time. Drip operations transfer a chunk of funds back to the distributor so it can distribute using the current delegation scores.

Operational notes:

• Drips are lazy: they are triggered when the distributor is invoked (for example, on delegation changes or when a delegator claims rewards).
• Before delegation scores change, the distributor drips outstanding streams so rewards are distributed under the scores that were active during the streamed interval.

Termination Refunds

If a service is terminated early, remaining (undripped) streamed balances are refunded to a recipient designated by the protocol.

What Customers Should Expect

• Streaming affects the timing of restaker distribution, not whether fees are owed.
• Ending a service early can refund unearned streamed portions (deployment-dependent policy and refund recipient).