Frequently Asked Questions

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For Sablier, the protocol for real-time finance on the Ethereum blockchain.
Getting Started
Where can I access the Sablier protocol?
You can access Sablier through our branded web interfaces:
​pay.sablier.finance (streaming money)
​app.sablier.finance (withdrawing the streamed money)
​gnosis-safe.io​
We're working with various players in the ecosystem to make Sablier accessible through more interfaces. If you want to use Sablier on a testnet, you have to get some TestnetDAI first.
What is real-time finance?
A term coined by us to emphasise the wide-ranging use cases for the Sablier protocol. We like to think about work as an attempt to rethink the way trust is established in financial contracts.
What is money streaming?
An alternative wording, coined by Andreas Antonopoulos in 2017. Just like you can stream movies on Netflix or music on Spotify, so you can stream money on Sablier.
Technical Glossary
What is Ethereum?
Sablier is built on top of Ethereum, a global, open-source platform for decentralized applications. You can read more about it on their official website.
What are smart contracts?
Permission-less scripts that:
Run on Ethereum
Cannot be modified once deployed
Do exactly what you tell them to do
What is ERC-20?
Stands for the "Ethereum Requests for Comments" number 20. It is the most popular technical standard on Ethereum and can be used for printing a currency.
Sablier is compatible with ERC-20 tokens only, such as DAI or USDC.
What is a stream?
A real-time payment, made up of six properties:
Name
Description
Sender
Ethereum address
Recipient
Ethereum address
Deposit
How much money to stream in total
Token
ERC-20 token address
Start time
When the money streaming starts
Stop time
When the money streaming stops
Imagine a salary worth 3,000 DAI streamed by a company towards an employee over the whole month of January 2020. The start time would be Jan 1, 2020 and the stop time Feb 1st, 2020.
Money Streaming
How can I create a stream?
You need an Ethereum wallet, some Ether and an ERC-20 token like DAI. Then, choose your favourite interface for accessing the Sablier protocol (such as pay.sablier.finance) and fill in the recipient's address, the deposit amount and the total duration.
Alternatively, head to our documentation to learn how to interact directly with the Sablier smart contracts.
How is the start time set?
You have full control over the start time, which is a unix timestamp measured in seconds. However, the Ethereum transaction that creates the stream must be processed by the blockchain before this start time, or otherwise the smart contract throws an error:
start time before block.timestamp
In our web interface, the start time is automatically set to ~10 minutes after the time at which the user sends the transaction to the mempool.
How does streaming work?
Dividing the lock-up value by the difference between the stop time and the start time gives us a payment rate per second. Sablier uses this rate to transfer a little bit of money from the sender to the recipient once every second.
For instance, if the payment rate was 0.01 DAI per second, the recipient would receive:
0.01 * 60 = 0.6 DAI / minute
0.01 * 60 * 60 = 36 DAI / hour
0.01 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 864 DAI / day
Where is the money held?
In our smart contracts. You can verify this statement by going to Etherscan or any other blockchain explorer.
How can recipients access their money?
As the money is being streamed at the smart contract level, recipient can consider Sablier their real-time wallet for digital currency.
To make withdrawals, recipients can:
1.
Call the contract directly on a blockchain explorer
2.
Use a web interface (e.g. app.sablier.finance)
Can I cancel streams?
Yes, both as a sender and a recipient.
If the stream is cancelled before the start time, the whole deposit amount is returned in full to you.
If the stream is cancelled while the stream is active, the smart contracts calculate how much has been streamed, transfer that to the recipient and return the remainder to you.
If the stream is cancelled after the stream has stopped, the smart contracts transfers all the remaining funds (if any) to the recipient.
Can I modify the streaming rate?
No. Once a stream is created, it is set in stone on the Ethereum blockchain. However, in a future version of the protocol, we may add the option to refill an active stream and even extend it.
Security
Is the Sablier protocol safe?
The security of the Sablier protocol is our outmost priority. Our team, accompanied by external auditors and consultants, has invested considerable effort to create a protocol that is safe and reliable. All contract code is publicly verifiable in our GitHub repository, and Quantstamp, a third-party auditor, issued an audit certificate.
Is the Sablier protocol transparent?
As transparent as it can be. Verify the smart contracts by yourself on GitHub and Etherscan.
Does the Sablier protocol have an administrator?
No. The contracts do not have any owner or administrator. They are as trustless as an Ethereum contract can be.
Accessibility
What can Sablier be used for?
We came up with a few ideas in this discussion on Twitter, but the sky is the limit.
Who can use Sablier?
Anyone in the world with an Internet connection and an Ethereum wallet.
The Sablier web interface is down, what can I do?
The Sablier protocol is "always-on", but, in the event that MetaMask or our web interfaces are malfunctioning, you can access Sablier manually on Etherscan:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xcd18eaa163733da39c232722cbc4e8940b1d8888
etherscan.io
Last modified 3mo ago