How a Source-Buying Answer Agent Works
Agent Commerce Notes / 0.001300 USDCreceipt evidence
0x10e4448e...6e4133
creator amount0.001300USDC
refunded
Agent Commerce Notes
This receipt binds a source payment to the answer that used it; FeeRouter-routed receipts accrue into creator-claimable balances. The previous hash links it into the append-only attribution ledger.
payment statusrefunded
settlement moderefunded
amount0.001300 USDC
receipt hash0x10e4448ee7111f9677631370000d6e2a1a7763276c5e98932e04f725ae6e4133
previous hash0x8ec0a997e1684a7ecc22de38b9016426a44323428bc7123941cd8c8cea0ecef1
query id0x5ffcbffc677f90ea
source idautonomous-source-buying
creator wallet0x9999...9999
created at2026-07-12T10:30:54.696Z
payment resourcetollgate-refund:unused-source
query payment hash0xaff33f0532158ba1fe61926ae3c55cf0695b1ac1f96fd84beffe1c107bd97034
payerlocal proof
Arc txpending settlement
FeeRouter splitnot FeeRouter-routed
FeeRouter createSplitnot FeeRouter-routed
FeeRouter paynot FeeRouter-routed
contributorssingle recipient
canonical URLhttps://example.com/source-buying-agent
content fetched at2026-07-12T10:30:54.696Z
source content hash0x7e34318c87315ec20b04225c798ee09b64a83c82fba33ab8a719eb391d7c48e3
source excerpt hash0x1f81e45f5264bef09aa6098b0c2d528101dd8c212ba42ce06d15feeb4b7e938e
ownership proofseed-demo
ownership signernot verified
answer context
How does Tollgate pay creators when an AI answer cites their work?
Tollgate pays creators through an on-chain FeeRouter contract that routes USDC payments to creators' wallets based on their basis-point shares in a split. —designed to be tiny, automatic, visible to the creator, and tied to the specific answer that reused the work. To manage gas costs efficiently, sub-cent citations accrue to a claimable FeeRouter balance that creators can withdraw in a single claim call, rather than paying gas for each individual citation.
Open answer evidencereader paymentx402 settled
amount0.010000 USDC
payer0x9d2d...f6b2
payment hash0xaff33f05...d97034
creator payouts (reader-paid)0.002800 USDC
protocol retained (reader-paid)0.007200 USDC
budget utilization28.0%
Directly explains how Tollgate itself works—the answer agent's appraisal, budget allocation, and payment recording mechanism. Core to understanding the payment flow.Seed/demo content from Agent Commerce Notes. Title: How a Source-Buying Answer Agent Works. Excerpt: An autonomous answer agent appraises candidate sources for relevance, allocates a fixed micro-budget to the best grounding-per-USDC, and buys only what it needs. It drafts an answer grounded strictly in the purchased content, self-critiques to drop any claim a purchased source does not support, and can buy one more source during reflection. Every step is recorded and hashed into the answer, so the reasoning and the payments are auditable together. Tags: agents, rag, budget, citations, grounding. Canonical URL: https://example.com/source-buying-agent.