Useful work.
A buyer.
Your cut.

THOT is intended to connect people who produce useful AI research with buyers who want to learn from it. The token pays for licensed traces. A qualifying lock improves the contributor’s share of their own sales.

Start with an actual purchase.

1. A contributor saves supported AI work in a private library.
2. A buyer sets a budget, the examples they want, a price, and license terms. The treasury can be that buyer.
3. The contributor reviews the exact material to be released and accepts the offer.
4. The buyer funds the purchase escrow. Once the licensed purchase completes under its terms, the contributor receives their share and a receipt.

The selected direction is for buyers to pay in THOT. They can use tokens they hold or acquire them from the market. The trace market splits that funded payment; it does not create new tokens. Treasury-funded purchases follow the same escrow and seller-share rules.

These shares are a proposal, including for treasury-funded acquisitions. An offer must show the actual token amount and applicable terms before acceptance. The seller’s share is the payment for that purchase, not a bonus added on top. Neither a token balance nor a quoted market price guarantees that it can be sold for a particular number of dollars.

The proposed escrow requires delivery within two days, followed by a minimum seven-day dispute period. Failed delivery returns the buyer’s funds; unresolved disputes keep payment in escrow. Once the purchase finalizes, the seller receives their share. The reserve’s slow release limits new offers; it does not impose an extra vesting period on finalized sale proceeds.

The lock improves your own sales.

The current proposed threshold is 100,000 THOT locked for at least 90 days, with a seven-day waiting period before qualification. It changes seller retention from 80% to 90%. The exact contract terms still need implementation and review.

You do not need to buy or lock THOT to earn the proposed 80% base share. A qualifying lock raises the share of your own sales to 90%, including when the treasury acquires your trace. Simply holding or locking THOT does not generate income, a fixed APY, or a claim on everyone else’s sales.

The treasury can be the first buyer.

The selected launch plan targets a fixed initial supply of 1 billion THOT on Pons, with a disclosed creation-time purchase of 500 million THOT to fund the contribution reserve. There is no investor or partner allocation in this plan.

The purchaser must supply the launch capital. Once funded, the reserve holds existing THOT that the treasury can spend on specific licensed traces. Each acquisition goes through the same purchase escrow as an external buyer’s order, with the same review, consent, and 80% / 90% seller shares.

The subsidy is the treasury’s purchase budget. It is not a second award added to a sale payment. A treasury purchase moves existing reserve tokens and does not count as independent buyer demand; the protocol’s retained share of its own purchase is internal recycling.

Before making paid offers, publish the reserve address, spending controls, available budget, and acquisition terms. An estimate or private upload alone creates no entitlement to payment.

Treasury reserve, purchase escrow, and contributors’ locked principal are separate. A contributor’s lock must not finance acquisitions. A separate treasury contract can hold existing THOT and fund approved purchases, so no extra minting function is needed. Committed purchases cannot exceed funded assets.

A bounded first acquisition campaign.

Numerical proposal, pending economic review. All 500 million THOT would be acquired for the reserve, but only 50 million THOT would receive first-campaign spending authority. The other 450 million remain inactive. Authority is a ceiling on gross purchase commitments, not an earned seller balance.

• A limited start: up to 1 million THOT of gross treasury purchases can begin without outside purchases, still subject to the daily cap.
• Further spending needs buyers: each THOT spent by reviewed independent buyers on finalized trace purchases permits at most one additional THOT of gross treasury purchases.
• Time also limits spending: daily purchase ceilings decline with a proposed 180-day half-life and stop after 360 days. The daily and total limits apply even when there is enough buyer spending.

With no independent buyers, the treasury can commit at most 1 million THOT gross in total. Even with sufficient buyers, the proposed time limits allow at most 37.5 million THOT gross over 360 days. Sellers receive their 80% or 90% share of those purchases.

Each issued, funded treasury offer consumes spending authority once, including if it later expires. Returned protocol fees and refunds do not reset that authority. Treasury purchases, token trading fees, and token turnover do not count as independent trace-buyer spending. The full whitepaper specifies the budget formulas and review rules.

A useful market could reinforce itself.

Independent buyers who need THOT may acquire it. Productive contributors may lock THOT to retain more of their own sale proceeds. Better trace supply may attract more buyers. These are possible responses to a useful product, not automatic steps or guaranteed demand.

Treasury purchases also move tokens into sellers’ hands. Sellers can sell, and locked tokens can return to circulation at expiry. Those flows can offset buying and locking. The mechanism does not guarantee price appreciation.

Trading fees and trace revenue are different.

The chosen Pons setting adds a 1% creator fee for a displayed 2% total trade fee. The creator’s full receipt also depends on the base-fee split and buyback setting. The deployed fee recipients and final split must be published at launch.

Those fees apply to trading through the relevant launchpad or pool mechanism. They do not establish an automatic tax on every transfer or every market in THOT.

The trace marketplace separately retains its share of actual trace purchases. That can fund operations. Trading revenue may also fund disclosed acquisitions when it has actually been collected and allocated; it is not the same as independent demand for research and creates no passive holder dividend.

What you can try today.

An estimate, a funded offer, and a payment.

Estimated value is an opinion about what research might be worth. Purchase escrow holds a buyer’s funded payment under the acquisition terms. Sale proceeds are the seller’s share of a completed purchase. Treasury funding changes who buys the trace; it does not create an extra reward to count twice.

Borrowing against future trace revenue would require a lender, a repayment agreement, and a basis for underwriting. There is no borrowing facility in the launch app.