Spilt¶
Capacity-Constrained Monetary Flow Control for Agent Economies
What is BPE?¶
Backpressure Economics (BPE) is a novel cryptoeconomic mechanism that adapts the Tassiulas–Ephremides backpressure routing algorithm from communication networks to monetary flows in multi-agent economies.
Streaming payment protocols enable continuous monetary flows between AI agents, yet none provide flow control: when a downstream agent reaches capacity, payments accumulate with no mechanism to reroute, buffer, or throttle - unlike data networks where packets can be dropped or queued.
BPE solves this by treating receiver-side capacity constraints as first-class payment routing primitives.
Key Contributions¶
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:material-math-integral-box: Formal Model
A capacity-constrained monetary flow network where agents declare processing capacity through commit-reveal signals, with EWMA-smoothed flow weights.
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:material-chart-line: Throughput Optimality
Proof via Lyapunov drift analysis that BPE achieves throughput-optimal allocation - every stabilisable demand vector is served with bounded overflow buffers.
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:material-file-code: Protocol Design
Five Solidity smart contracts on Superfluid's GDA, with permissionless pool creation, Sybil resistance, and multi-stage pipeline composition.
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:material-flask: Evaluation
Simulations show 95.7% allocation efficiency vs 93.5% for round-robin, shock recovery within 50 steps, and buffer stall rates under 9%.
Architecture¶
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Agent SDK Layer │
│ ├─ CapacityComputer: runtime metric → capacity signal │
│ ├─ TaskQueueManager: local queue with overflow handling │
│ └─ StreamLifecycle: subscribe/unsubscribe/claim/withdraw │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Backpressure Logic Layer (Off-chain + On-chain oracle) │
│ ├─ CapacityOracle: aggregates signals, applies EWMA │
│ ├─ RebalanceEngine: computes unit weights from capacity │
│ └─ VerificationService: PoCW checks, slash triggers │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Settlement Layer (On-chain / Base L2) │
│ ├─ BackpressurePool.sol: extends Superfluid GDA Pool │
│ ├─ CapacityRegistry.sol: on-chain capacity signal state │
│ ├─ StakeManager.sol: staking, capacity caps, slashing │
│ └─ EscrowBuffer.sol: overflow buffer when all sinks full │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Streaming Primitive Layer │
│ └─ Superfluid Protocol (CFA + GDA on Base) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Explore¶
- Paper - Full academic paper with formal model, proofs, and evaluation
- Plan - Design decisions, protocol spec, contracts blueprint, and roadmap
- Implementation - Smart contracts, SDK, and simulation code