Choosing Providers

Provider selection on VirtEngine is evidence-based: the reputation signals are on-chain objects you can query, not testimonials on a landing page.

The four signals

1. Audit attestations (x/audit)

Independent auditors publish signed attestations about providers. An attestation tells you a third party staked its own on-chain identity on the claim. Check who audited (auditors have reputations too), what the attestation covers, and whether it is still valid — attestations can be revoked or superseded.

You can also make audits a hard requirement in your order’s placement constraints, so unaudited providers never appear in your bid set.

2. Benchmarks (x/benchmark)

On-chain performance measurements. Two uses:

• Comparative — rank bidders on measured performance rather than advertised specs.
• Contractual — a provider whose delivered performance diverges from its benchmark profile is generating evidence for your future dispute.

3. Reviews (x/review)

Reviews come from verified VEID identities with actual lease history — which blunts both fake praise and competitor sabotage. Read them the way you’d read code review comments: patterns matter more than outliers, and recurring specifics (billing disputes, network instability) matter most.

4. Identity & fraud history

Providers operate from VEID-verified accounts. Fraud reports (x/fraud) and dispute history are part of the public record. A provider with repeated reconciliation blocks or accepted disputes against them has told you what working with them is like.

Weighing price against evidence

Bid profile	Interpretation
Low price, no audit, no history	You are the beta test — fine for stateless, disposable workloads
Market price, audited, strong reviews	The default choice for production
Low price, strong benchmarks, mediocre reviews	Read the reviews; performance isn’t the only failure mode
Premium price, everything strong	Pay it when workload criticality justifies the assurance

Structural protections regardless of choice

Even with an unproven provider, the protocol limits your downside:

• escrow caps your exposure to what you deposited,
• every usage record has a 24-hour dispute window,
• reconciliation blocks settlement on >25% metric discrepancies, and
• mTLS (x/cert) authenticates the provider endpoint you talk to.

Choose providers to minimize operational disappointment; the financial rails are protective by construction.