User Story · The Curator

Cara is judgment for hire.

She doesn't lend her own fortune and she doesn't own a vault. She registers, posts a stake, and sells the one thing the passive majority needs: knowing where on the ladder to stand.

The open seat

Nobody licensed her

registrationAnyone becomes a curator by posting a skin-in-the-game junior stake. That buys a sleeve — a segregated allocation book — and a row on the leaderboard. No committee, no blessing from us.
the clientPaul 🪴 deposits once and delegates. He never picks a tick again; Cara paints his USDC across her chosen rungs. A pro like Lisa is simply a curator with one client — herself. One primitive: a bid directed by judgment, own or delegated.
The craft & the pay

Her track record is the product

the craftLadder placement follows the risk engine's public formulas — Cara's edge is estimating the inputs: real volatility, real depth, when to stand higher and when to duck. In corridor markets the craft shifts to reading flow — rebalancing the thirsty side, where the curve pays peak yield for showing up.
the payHer fee is market-set — she prices her own sleeve, competition disciplines it (10% of sleeve yield in the demo). She earns only when the sleeve earns: no yield, no fee. Followers of one curator share that ladder's outcomes pro-rata; never across sleeves — her mistakes land on her followers alone, which is exactly what keeps her track record meaningful.
the market for herOther curators run rival sleeves on the same book. LPs switch by internal reallocation (respecting the same utilization gates as withdrawals — delegation is never a backdoor exit). The protocol's flagship sleeve competes on the same leaderboard with no privileged fee: it earns or it shrinks.
The cage

Bounded on purpose

rate limitsLadder moves are banded per epoch — no one-move risk spike, even from a compromised key.
skin firstHer junior stake sits in front of every sleeve position: a bad ladder buys bad collateral with her money before Paul's.
bright lineNo incentive program — hers, an issuer's, or ours — ever discounts an entry fee, widens a cap, or shallows a ladder. Subsidies pay on top of honest prices; they never touch them.
The doctrine, one level up from the ticks: payment follows the judgment that placed it. Full mechanics in Pricing §05 — curation is a market, not a role; watch Cara's fee accrue against Paul's earnings in the Market story.