What are the roles in a Manifold federation?

A Manifold federation involves three roles, and they are kept deliberately separate from one another.

• Ambassador – Individual who initiates the creation of a federation in the Fedi app and manages it. The ambassador selects the number of guardians, pays for their server seats, and sets the federation fee & details once it is formed. They hold no keys and run no federation infrastructure.
• Guardian – Verified individual who runs fedimint servers for as many federations (1 server per federation). Each guardian runs the Manifold Fedimint Guardian app on their own hardware, offers a number of seats, sets their price per seat, and earns a share of the federation's fee revenue.
• Liquidity Provider – Verified individual who supplies Lightning liquidity to a federation by connecting their gateway(s) to it. Liquidity providers ensure there is enough bitcoin connected to a federation so that an equivalent amount of eCash can be issued against it, allowing users to transact.
  • This is a financial role vs an operational one, and as such, the provider never selects guardians or holds keys. Fedi is the only liquidity provider for Manifold federations to start, but there will be others in the future.