merhaba!

we do! any configuration can be sent as an RFQ and dealers will respond with their inventory

Great question. We don’t treat “used” as one bucket. Before the RFQ goes out, the buyer says what logs and tests they need. If the seller can’t provide usage history, that’s stated in the quote rather than inferred. The market then prices that difference. Hardware with better records and more thorough testing should attract higher bids.

Yep, so basically the buyer has to trust the seller is honest and/or doesn't make a mistake (uploading the data for the wrong GPUs or something).

if wrong documentation is produced, buyers have the right to dispute / return the equipment for a preset period of time. we get the sellers to certify the verifications they upload.

I'm not saying this is bad, or any worse than other marketplaces, but essentially a direct contract would typically have these 'protections' too. How do you enforce 'you can get a refund in xx days if you're unhappy'? Are you holding the funds in escrow for that period of time or is this a direct buyer<>seller contract term that you have no way of enforcing on behalf of the buyer?

The terms are defined in the sales agreements on the platform. Both parties abide by the terms throughout the transaction. We do not release any payment to the sellers until the buyer certifies that they have done the inspection and they are satisfied with the purchase. Throughout the settlement steps, we ask for evidence from both parties.

Contract is essentially pre-defined on the platform, and the parties need to agree with it to trade on Stoa. Establishes mutual trust among both parties.

Yes, those types of differences across different providers is what the finance world calls basis risk. As more and more transactions take place, we hope to bring transparency into how different components/specs can change pricing, and make them tradable too.

Basis risk is also a big part of futures markets, how much does spot price differ from forward pricing and why. For physical GPUs, theory would expect a downward sloping forward curve due to the depreciation factor, but from what we have seen recently, sometimes not the case!

We have AMD chips too, especially MI350X has been in high demand.

No mention on the website as far as I can see.

Website includes some of the most liquid cards, but we have many more configs in the actual marketplace.

Those work with rental agreements on compute, we directly transact the hardware itself. Instead of per hr pricing, we do physical unit prices. We help with the shipment and clearing process too.

ok, Who will handle customs and other complicated things? you guys include that in clearing process?

Yep, we currently only transact within the US in the marketplace. We handle end user disclosure type checks on the platform. For any international deals, we still support them via our over-the-counter brokerage arm today.

Oh! You mean like ebay.

Wouldn't really say like ebay. our transactions are binding and more client driven (clients put the requests instead of stale dealer listings).

on ebay, the dealers always have the right to just cancel your order. we heard this caused a lot of problems for different vendors.

The market is so new and growing that we sometimes end up working together with competitors to satisfy some of the requests. Would be great to know who it is!

We actually had many rental marketplaces that asked to work with us and validated the need for a hardware marketplace.

We already support these!

We ask any seller to post the condition and testing reports for the hardware they sell, so there is no info asymmetry. As long as there is a willing buyer and a willing seller at the conditions specified, transaction goes through! We deal with A100s all the time.

Nice thing about these chips is that they have built in software that allows you to see the condition. The secondary market also supports the circular economy, most of these servers are proving to be useful longer than what the market initially thought. There is always a case to go with used equipment instead of new ones.

We use Stripe Connect to transfer the funds, and it is not a waivable process. In addition to KYC documentation, the team personally meets with any participant we onboard to the marketplace. We also have the ability to manually intervene in transactions if need be, but so far we have not had any transaction issues. It almost reminds me of how people were super skeptical of Uber and Airbnb when they first launched, but human trust goes a long way, sometimes further than we originally anticipate.

One thing that guides how we think about this is: we will never ask you to make the payment before you feel comfortable with the counterparty you are dealing with.

I agree with you that most humans are trustworthy, but fraudulent actors will build trust with counterparties on your marketplace and then abscond. "Personally meeting with them" does not prevent a "long firm" from skipping town with the proceeds from a $6m order later.

I think what you guys are building is awesome, just gotta be really really careful with fraud and trust when building a marketplace in particular.