How a Source-Buying Answer Agent Works
Agent Commerce Notes / 0.001300 USDCreceipt evidence
0x35b11cb9...65cf21
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 hash0x35b11cb9af65e2f4f19686f346d7d2f18af9bbb83064d4e2c95ca7692a65cf21
previous hash0x4df6c0f6ed602740c04762da3208504f943e9384d427cd5ee405937f516811c8
query id0xb13f86099060c665
source idautonomous-source-buying
creator wallet0x9999...9999
created at2026-07-12T00:14:47.770Z
payment resourcetollgate-refund:unused-source
query payment hash0x1cc44bb65851edce513c5cee3eeeeadba8906b871a090be41df17f73ed0809a7
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 at2026-07-12T00:14:47.770Z
source content hash0x0d6ecbcbcab72586b278455131952765bdb3d46c1b8268b08480fe193de5d77b
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 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%
Directly explains how Tollgate (the answer agent itself) works: appraises sources, allocates budget, buys grounding, and records payments auditably. Core to understanding the payment mechanism.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.