How to Become a CoW Protocol Solver

A developer can write a solver good enough to compete with anyone on CoW Protocol and still not be allowed to take part.

That is not a technical problem, and more code will not fix it. The protocol does not ask for a repository or an endpoint. It asks for a company, and for named people.

That one fact is why a solver is really two jobs. One builds the engine. The other carries everything the protocol needs from a real, accountable party. The second job has a name: the operator of record.

What CoW Protocol asks of a new solver

To join the solver competition through the CoW DAO bonding pool, you submit your company's incorporation details, including who its shareholders are, and passports for the main shareholders and developers. Once you have those, the process takes a few working days.

Then there is the bond. A solver that wants its own bonding pool has to post serious capital, in stablecoins and COW, before it competes in a single auction. Most new solvers do not do that. They are vouched into the CoW DAO bonding pool instead, which means someone stands behind them rather than capital.

Either way, what the protocol is checking is the same: is there a real party here who answers for what this solver does?

A solver is two jobs

The engine is what people picture when they hear the word solver. It reads each auction, works out the best routes and prices, and answers inside the deadline, thousands of times a week, against every other solver doing the same. It is hard, it is where the intellectual property lives, and it is the part that wins or loses.

The entity is everything else. It is the company, the KYC, the bond or the vouch, the address the protocol pays, and the party that answers when something goes wrong. Nobody writes about this half, so most builders find out about it when they are already stuck.

The two share a name and almost nothing else. Treating them as one job is how good engines end up sitting on a laptop.

What an operator of record does

At Kaisersolver, William builds and runs the engine. Fiftysix is the operator of record. In practice, that means we:

• Keep the company in good standing, with the KYC record in its name and its people's names.
• Hold the relationship with the bonding pool, and keep it in order.
• Receive the rewards, account for every deduction, and pay the builder their share.
• Sign for the solver, on grants, with market makers, and with anyone else who needs a counterparty with a name and an address.
• Watch the solver's addresses on every chain and keep its records for years, not weeks.
• Keep track of what it learns, from readiness checks to settlements, and use it to improve the solver and the tools around it.
• Answer when something goes wrong.

That last one is the job. Twelve days after Kaisersolver went live, a settlement failed and the protocol charged a penalty. It landed on our ledger, not on the engine's, and not on the protocol that actually submits our settlements, because we do not hold those keys. The cost arrived at the operator of record anyway. That is what standing behind something means.

What an operator of record does not do

It is worth being exact, because "the business side" can sound like more than it is.

An operator of record does not write the engine or decide its strategy. It does not hold anyone's funds: we hold one key, and it receives rewards already earned. It does not trade, make markets, or take the other side of any order. It holds no inventory.

If any of that changed, it would be a different business, and we would describe it differently.

Who this is for

If you are a developer with a working engine and no company, the gap between you and the competition is not technical. Knowing that early is worth more than another month of optimisation. This is the part Fiftysix carries.

If you are a company thinking about standing behind someone else's engine, read the list above, then picture a settlement failing at three in the morning on a chain you have never looked at. The cost arrives at your address. Be sure you want that before you sign up for it.

What we do not answer

How a structure works in your jurisdiction, how rewards should be treated for tax, and which registrations or licences might apply are questions for your own lawyers and accountants. We are neither, and we do not give views on any of it. Have that conversation early. It goes better than having it late.

Read more

• What it costs to run a CoW Protocol solver: what participating costs, and what competing costs.
• cow-backtester: find out whether your solver would win before you go live.
• Who holds the keys to a solver's settlements: what the protocol controls, and what we do.

If you have an engine and need an operator of record, get in touch. We would rather get there with people than ahead of them.