Types of streams

Superstream supports 2 types of streams - prepaid and unbounded.

Prepaid streams

Prepaid streams require the stream sender to prepay the whole amount upfront on stream creation. Prepaid streams need to have a fixed lifetime.

Example

If you want to pay someone $10 per day for one month - you can create a prepaid stream, put $300 in Superstream's escrow account, and the recipient will receive $10 every day. If you decide for some reason you want to cancel the contract, the remaining prepaid amount is refunded to your wallet.

Unbounded streams

Unbounded streams require the stream sender to pay a small deposit amount upfront on stream creation. To make sure the stream stays active, the sender has to topup the stream before the escrow account runs out of money. Unbounded streams can have a fixed end date, or they can have an unlimited lifetime - only stopping when cancelled.

Example

If you want to pay someone $10 per day until they leave - you can create an unbounded stream, put $80 in Superstream's escrow account, and the recipient will receive $10 every day. To ensure the stream keeps running and the recipient keeps getting their money, you can choose to topup the stream with $70 every week.

What happens if streams aren't topped up in time?

If that happens, they become insolvent. The stream is cancelled and the sender pays a penalty taken out from the deposit they paid when creating the stream.

Which one to use?

Some streams like ESOPs would need to be prepaid because employees would need assurance that some set of tokens are locked up in an escrow that will be given to them on the vesting schedule.

Other streams like payroll, subscriptions - which require a cash flow to pay - will be unbounded. It's recommended to keep the topup interval low for unbounded streams, so that recipients can be rest assures streams are topped up, and they'll keep getting paid.