How a Source-Buying Answer Agent Works
Agent Commerce Notes / 0.001300 USDCreceipt evidence
0x631f4a56...ade3e4
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 hash0x631f4a5644aba979ca1be8f946330747bfd836a9542dd28f11caf068c6ade3e4
previous hash0x2bc6c4d11009b1eab70a677f9566a698621ada54efc467b1b97ab22a37114c11
query id0x985d71b75fd8d992
source idautonomous-source-buying
creator wallet0x9999...9999
created at2026-07-12T14:08:35.676Z
payment resourcetollgate-refund:unused-source
query payment hash0xf88683ae707ca395dcfd3f4f68a973d8e5b9a7e64acc7bc2f5228ad50e50eadc
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 at2026-07-12T14:08:35.676Z
source content hash0x71e84f19f1299f57b7338c5287c4f078fa2a24c2afc7022ae2dbf493ac5806ec
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 hash0xf88683ae...50eadc
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.