Payee bond

Origin

In Roman law, earnest money bound both sides: a buyer who backed out lost the arrha, and a seller who backed out returned it twice over. Later law called this double arrha, earnest that cuts both ways.

What it is in Arrha

The payee bond is optional. The payer sets its size at creation. The payee posts it when calling accept, in the deal's asset: HYPE sent as value for a HYPE deal, or the same ERC-20 for a token deal.

The earnest protects the payee from a payer who does not pay. The bond protects the payer from a payee who accepts and then does nothing.

Forfeiture rules

The bond is settled once, when the deal finishes.

Outcome	Bond goes to
Metric deal, at least one tranche released	Payee
Metric deal, every tranche refunded	Payer
Handshake deal, payee called markDelivered and payer accepted	Payee
Handshake deal, payee called markDelivered and payer rejected	Payee
Handshake deal, silence for 72 h after delivery	Payee
Handshake deal, never delivered by the deadline	Payer

A rejected Handshake delivery still returns the bond. The payee did the work; the payer chose not to keep it. The kill fee covers that case.

Limits

• Bounties have no bond. There is no named payee to post it.
• A bond is posted at accept. A deal that is never accepted has no bond to forfeit.
• The bond is not part of the earnest. It pays no protocol fee, in either direction.
• The bond is not counted in the Earnest badge.

Choosing a size

A bond should be large enough that walking away costs the payee something, and small enough that a serious payee will post it. For KOL and market-making deals, 5 to 10 % of the earnest is a common range. For Handshake deals with a kill fee, a bond is often unnecessary.