Skip to content

Place Bid

A successful bid reserves cache space for an active Stylus program on Arbitrum. When you use the "Bid Now" feature in the frontend, you're making a direct transaction with the CacheManager contract to secure cache space for your contract.

What Happens When You Place a Bid

When you click "Place Bid" in the frontend, the system:

  1. Validates your bid amount against current market conditions
  2. Prepares the transaction with the correct parameters
  3. Sends the transaction through your wallet to the CacheManager contract
  4. Monitors the result and updates your contract's cache status

The Transaction Flow

Frontend → Your Wallet → CacheManager Contract → Cache Queue

The frontend handles all the complexity, but ultimately you're calling:

function placeBid(address program) external payable

Where:

  • program: Your contract address
  • payable: The ETH amount you're bidding

Manual bids use your wallet balance, not the Gas Tank. The program must be active, the codehash must not already be cached, and your wallet must use the selected chain. Even a zero-value bid requires transaction gas.

Bid Amount Selection

Suggested Bid Levels

The frontend provides three suggested bid amounts based on current market conditions:

  • High Risk Bid: The minimum amount needed to get into the cache
  • Mid Risk Bid: A safer amount that's less likely to be outbid
  • Low Risk Bid: A higher suggested amount for lower relative eviction risk

These suggestions are calculated using the same logic described in Bid Suggestions.

Custom Bid Amounts

You can also enter a custom bid amount, but it must be At least the minimum bid for your contract size.

What Happens After You Bid

Immediate Effects

  1. Transaction Confirmation: Your bid is recorded on the blockchain
  2. Cache Queue Entry: Your contract enters the cache queue
  3. Auction Accounting: CacheManager records the bid with its internal time-decay term
  4. Status Update: The frontend updates to show your contract's new status

Time Decay Bonus

The CacheManager contract automatically adds a "decay bonus" to your bid:

actualBid = yourBidAmount + currentDecayAmount

This ensures your new bid is competitive with older bids that have been decaying. You only pay your bid amount - the bonus is added by the contract logic.

Monitoring Your Bid

Effective Bid Tracking

After placing a bid, your effective bid will decay over time:

effectiveBid = lastBid - (timeElapsed * decayRate)

Eviction Risk Assessment

The system continuously monitors your eviction risk by comparing your effective bid to current market thresholds.

Rebidding Considerations

The UI disables manual bidding while the program is cached. After eviction, you can bid again manually or let automation attempt recovery. Consider:

  • Setting up eviction alerts to know when your contract is evicted
  • Enabling bid automation for continuous cache maintenance

See Also