Citation Economics for AI Answers
Indie Researcher / 0.001200 USDCreceipt evidence
0x16684529...07d4d5
creator amount0.000934USDC
accrued -> claimable on-chain
Indie Researcher
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 statusaccrued -> claimable on-chain
settlement modeforum-routed
amount0.000934 USDC
receipt hash0x16684529553b64b5fbae29028d138fc83940307de5d2cc4544be634eae07d4d5
previous hash0x22ce4b60e99f2d6e9bd1b0c58facc711ca6008f82b04a8234ff86f299cf19e6a
query id0xb13f86099060c665
source idcreator-citation-economics
creator wallet0x6666...6666
created at2026-07-12T00:14:47.770Z
payment resourceforum-fee-router:0xeff9bc359e8f2a5eabce55af3f1bb24f98eabf59
query payment hash0x1cc44bb65851edce513c5cee3eeeeadba8906b871a090be41df17f73ed0809a7
payer0x4164F5B52ecc6F847f03071A287b0B59954cbcEe
Arc tx0x1c833ebd...1a4336
FeeRouter split135
FeeRouter createSplit0x1996f99d...829c20
FeeRouter pay0x1c833ebd...1a4336
contributorssingle recipient
canonical URLhttps://example.com/citation-economics
content fetched at2026-07-12T00:14:47.770Z
source content hash0x62e7b24fecee3c53067c35967848e724160ff08bae01f4ce7f1284f9f4ecf31c
source excerpt hash0x4249ed2c94867d635e49d478e53dd2ab0123be241c1bdbb8d0f239ee9862fe12
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 per-citation gas fees.
Open answer evidencereader paymentx402 settled
amount0.010000 USDC
payer0x9d2d...f6b2
payment hash0x1cc44bb6...0809a7
creator payouts (reader-paid)0.002800 USDC
protocol retained (reader-paid)0.007200 USDC
budget utilization28.0%
Establishes the principle that citation payments should be automatic, visible, and tied to the answer. Directly addresses creator compensation philosophy.Seed/demo content from Indie Researcher. Title: Citation Economics for AI Answers. Excerpt: A source payment should be tiny, automatic, visible to the creator, and tied to the answer that reused the work. Tags: citations, attribution, publishers, answers, economics. Canonical URL: https://example.com/citation-economics.