Tokenomics

The model in one loop

The whole design is one loop. $BASIS sits at the center as a single unit of account: it is the asset inference is paid in, the worker-reward token, and the settlement token. Read the loop before anything else — the sections below expand each step.

What $BASIS is for

$BASIS is a usage token, not a revenue claim. Its utility is paying for and coordinating inference work across the network.

• —Inference payment asset. The asset a job is actually paid in is $BASIS. Credits reserve and meter inference; the charge settles in $BASIS base units, locked to a rate at reservation.
• —API usage. Every OpenAI-compatible API call is priced deterministically in $BASIS base units, so a request and its receipt agree to the last unit.
• —Worker rewards. Contributor GPU workers earn the worker share of each completed, quality-checked job, settled on Base in keeper-driven batches. Failed and rejected jobs earn zero.
• —Settlement accounting. Reward ledgers and Base settlement batches are denominated in $BASIS, so the on-chain record matches the off-chain accounting. A batch settles once; no job pays twice.
• —Payment-router output token. ETH / WETH / USDC on Base route into $BASIS at payment time. $BASIS is the output asset of every prepared swap; Basis prepares it, never signs or custodies.

Worker / per-job-burn split

The network's per-job economics are defined exactly, in integer base units:

The split between the two is configurable and is the heart of the model. The v0.1 reference proposal is 90% worker / 10% burn, pending operator approval — a v0.1 proposal, not a commitment. It is set via BASIS_WORKER_REWARD_BPS and BASIS_NETWORK_MARGIN_BPS (which sum to 10000). The worker share is the reward base; the per-job burn share is its complement, earmarked for burn (draft / not implemented).

Fee streams

Basis has, at most, the fee streams below. WETH-side and $BASIS-side amounts are accounted separately and never blended. The per-pool accrued-amount read is pending until verified on-chain; the $BASIS-side 50/50 has been realized on every claim to date (50% burned on-chain + 50% funded to the vault, vesting over 7 days — read live from Base), while the continuous, automatic feed is not yet wired.

$BASIS-side fee generation

$BASIS-side fee generation is the $BASIS side of the Bankr creator fee. It splits 50% burn / 50% staker rewards — applied to the $BASIS side only, never the WETH side, and separate from the per-job burn. This split is realized on every claim.

The WETH side stays separate: it is a liquid external reserve for operations, the inference backend, liquidity, security, and a treasury reserve, with no burn or staker split. The two sides are different ledgers, in different denominations, under different policies.

Supply posture

Rewards are funded from the worker share of collected charges — never from new issuance.

Distinct ledgers (never one number)

To keep accounting honest, Basis tracks these separately, always. A single blended treasury number would be dishonest; the separation is enforced at the type level.

• —Burned $BASIS — removed from supply at the dead address. The realized $BASIS-side-claim burns are read live from Base (the dead-address balance); the per-job burn is a separate flow and is not implemented. The continuous-feed counter starts at 0, never blended with treasury.
• —Staker-reward $BASIS — the staker-reward side of $BASIS-side fee generation, funded into the vault per claim (fundRewards) and vesting over 7 days into staked value, read live from Base. The continuous-feed counter starts at 0; the automatic feed is not yet wired.
• —Treasury-held $BASIS — native inventory the treasury holds, from unsplit $BASIS-side Bankr fees.
• —Worker-reward obligations — $BASIS owed or accrued to workers for completed jobs; a liability, not treasury.
• —Bankr-accrued fees — creator trading fees in the V4 pool, WETH-side and $BASIS-side tracked as two separate balances, null until live and verified.

What $BASIS is not

• —Not an investment, security, or financial product. Nothing here is an offer.
• —No yield, interest, passive income, profit-sharing, or staking returns.
• —No guaranteed worker earnings. Reward depends on jobs actually served plus quality, uptime, and latency; failed jobs reward zero.
• —No way to buy preferential routing, fabricated metrics, or favorable treatment.
• —No custody. Basis never holds a user's or worker's funds or keys; acquiring $BASIS in advance is not required.

Status