Citation Economics for AI Answers
Indie Researcher / 0.001200 USDCreceipt evidence
0xdcfc3c8b...4ba6d8
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 hash0xdcfc3c8bc948fa382f51d13efb27db4a29792b9b5413f822937c97d4f74ba6d8
previous hash0x35b11cb9af65e2f4f19686f346d7d2f18af9bbb83064d4e2c95ca7692a65cf21
query id0x9d384ead87d98c91
source idcreator-citation-economics
creator wallet0x6666...6666
created at2026-07-12T00:27:59.449Z
payment resourceforum-fee-router:0xeff9bc359e8f2a5eabce55af3f1bb24f98eabf59
query payment hash0x5533641f3b87b94ca1f9d880fadde8f8aaa9dd71d3707add58a3d2cb019e94d0
payer0x4164F5B52ecc6F847f03071A287b0B59954cbcEe
Arc tx0x5cf6eda3...f132a0
FeeRouter split135
FeeRouter createSplit0x1996f99d...829c20
FeeRouter pay0x5cf6eda3...f132a0
contributorssingle recipient
canonical URLhttps://example.com/citation-economics
content fetched at2026-07-12T00:27:59.449Z
source content hash0x33b5cb7efd9139bad8f7d8c8b3d92f1642f6963c88b637cd27c13397d2add815
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 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%
Establishes the principle that citation payments should be automatic, visible, and tied to answers. Foundational to answering how creators are paid.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.