Circle Admin Operations
A Circle Admin operates a community-backed group of merchants under one currency and one configuration. The role is to run a local operating unit. You recruit merchants and approve their payment channels, you settle disputes inside your Circle, you provide operational support, and you monitor merchant performance. Each wallet can operate one Circle, recorded on-chain by the admin address.
What the role is not
Several things are explicitly outside the Circle Admin's responsibility, because the protocol handles them.
- Payment processing and settlement run automatically on-chain.
- No third-party funds are held by the admin. Balances are escrowed and settled by the Diamond.
- User KYC is handled by the protocol's verification layer, not by the admin.
Creating a Circle
Circle creation is permissionless. Any wallet that meets the per-currency minimum $P2P stake can create one, provided it does not already operate a Circle and the chosen name is globally unique. The currency must already be registered on the protocol.
- Connect your wallet to the Circle Admin interface.
- Configure the Circle name, the operating currency, a community URL, and the auto-approval setting for payment channels. Manual approval is the more conservative choice.
- Stake $P2P to the protocol. The stake is recorded against your admin address and remains locked while the Circle operates.
- Confirm the transaction. The Circle moves to an active state once your stake is in place.
The minimum admin stake is set per country. The current spec default is the equivalent of $250 USDC in $P2P. The on-chain minimum may be unset until a country is configured, so the live minimum shown in-app is authoritative. A Circle becomes inactive if the admin stake falls below the configured minimum. You can add stake at any time, and you can request to unstake down to the minimum through a request-and-cooldown flow.
Cost and revenue mechanics
The cost to operate is the locked $P2P stake plus transaction gas. The stake is operational collateral, not a fee. It is returned through the unstake flow subject to the cooldown, and it can be slashed by a super admin in defined misconduct cases.
On the revenue side, a Circle earns a Circle commission expressed as a share of Circle volume. The current default is 0.25 percent of Circle volume, split between the Circle Admin and the community $P2P stakers by a configurable ratio. The live value is shown in-app. A portion of admin earnings is held back as a locked rolling buffer (Circle Admin Loss Reserve) before it becomes claimable. The split between the Circle Admin and community $P2P stakers and the locked portion are configurable per currency.
Access control and delegation of duties
A Circle Admin holds the default permissions for the Circle and can grant specific permissions to helpers through capability-based access control, scoped per Circle. Common grants are approving or rejecting merchant payment channels, settling disputes, and blacklisting merchants. Grants are revocable at any time, and they are revoked automatically when the admin role transfers. Granting a permission does not transfer accountability. The Circle Admin remains responsible for decisions made under granted permissions.
Circle status and rejection
A Circle is active while the admin stake is at or above the minimum and the Circle has not been rejected. Merchant-fault dispute settlements increment a per-Circle dispute counter. When the counter crosses the configured threshold for the currency, the Circle auto-transitions to a rejected state and new merchant onboarding is blocked until a super admin resets the counter. There is no automatic time-based decay of the counter.