How a Source-Buying Answer Agent Works
Agent Commerce Notes / 0.001300 USDCreceipt evidence
0x3df01e4a...9a96d1
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 hash0x3df01e4a1aaa28caa8ec7efb6f0f8d630f0ca86602ef4eb79098fcf0369a96d1
previous hash0x53b10c62598785713dc5ed7b7150bf58fbe6c59fa9f87be09f18775188ae3009
query id0x9d384ead87d98c91
source idautonomous-source-buying
creator wallet0x9999...9999
created at2026-07-12T00:27:59.449Z
payment resourcetollgate-refund:unused-source
query payment hash0x5533641f3b87b94ca1f9d880fadde8f8aaa9dd71d3707add58a3d2cb019e94d0
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 at2026-07-12T00:27:59.449Z
source content hash0xc97592cad7c241f845d6d26a81284f495f7ed6193877d396e29003f64bd9fb27
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 hash0x5533641f...9e94d0
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. 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.