Citation Economics for AI Answers
Indie Researcher / 0.001200 USDCreceipt evidence
0xff26d765...30d6ce
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 hash0xff26d7658990a3e061ad2bd3f4b33aa4861c45a2d5c1e7ea1f0363e7a430d6ce
previous hash0x631f4a5644aba979ca1be8f946330747bfd836a9542dd28f11caf068c6ade3e4
query id0xe5919d52cf4f97df
source idcreator-citation-economics
creator wallet0x6666...6666
created at2026-07-12T14:52:54.003Z
payment resourcetollgate-pay-gate:0x5B0C7ff19e71185843269Bb4f15788c005Ce693c
query payment hash0x11e83dfb2cd4d99dbd8ae1f7701a5319b91f199000b72da35f961b8566b433ee
payer0x4164F5B52ecc6F847f03071A287b0B59954cbcEe
Arc tx0x4f9b4e2c...f0a7ad
FeeRouter split135
FeeRouter createSplit0x1996f99d...829c20
FeeRouter pay0x4f9b4e2c...f0a7ad
contributorssingle recipient
canonical URLhttps://example.com/citation-economics
content fetched at2026-07-12T14:52:54.003Z
source content hash0xe0f0edbdaa134a88f43d63dfc7bdc697427b9e51b7e5c2d6a51b076127bd47c1
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 hash0x11e83dfb...b433ee
creator payouts (reader-paid)0.002800 USDC
protocol retained (reader-paid)0.007200 USDC
budget utilization28.0%
Articulates the payment principles (tiny, automatic, visible, tied to answer) that underpin creator compensation. Directly addresses the 'how' of payment design.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.