Payments

Buyers pre-deposit USDC into the on-chain AntseedDeposits contract. Each session follows a Reserve-Serve-Settle lifecycle where credits are locked via AntseedChannels (which holds no USDC itself), requests flow freely over the P2P transport, and settlement happens when the seller calls settle() or close().

Two EIP-712 signed messages drive the flow: ReserveAuth (buyer authorizes a session budget) and SpendingAuth (buyer authorizes cumulative spend per request).

Session Lifecycle

reserve → serve → settle

Buyer                          Seller                         Chain
  │                              │                              │
  ├── ReserveAuth ──────────────>│                              │
  │   (EIP-712: channelId,       │                              │
  │    maxAmount, deadline)      │                              │
  │                              ├── reserve(buyerSig) ────────>│
  │                              │   Deposits.lockForChannel()  │
  │                              │<──── reserveConfirmed ───────┤
  │                              │                              │
  │   ┌──────────────────────────┤                              │
  │   │ SERVE PHASE              │                              │
  │   │                          │                              │
  │   ├── HTTP Request ─────────>│                              │
  │   │<── HTTP Response ────────┤                              │
  │   ├── SpendingAuth ─────────>│  EIP-712: channelId,         │
  │   │   (cumulativeAmount,     │  cumulativeAmount,           │
  │   │    metadataHash)         │  metadataHash                │
  │   │         ... N requests   │                              │
  │   └──────────────────────────┘                              │
  │                              │                              │
  │  === SETTLE / CLOSE ======== │                              │
  │                              │                              │
  │                              ├── settle(SpendingAuth) ─────>│
  │                              │   or close(SpendingAuth)     │
  │                              │   Deposits.chargeAndCredit   │
  │                              │   EarningsToSeller()         │
  │                              │<──── confirmed ──────────────┤
  │                              │                              │

The seller calls settle() with the latest SpendingAuth to charge the buyer for cumulative usage while keeping the session open, or close() to finalize and release remaining funds. If the seller disappears, the buyer calls requestClose() to initiate timeout. After a 15-minute grace period, the buyer calls withdraw() to release locked funds.

EIP-712 Signed Messages

Two EIP-712 typed data messages drive the payment flow. Both share the same domain:

EIP-712 domain

name:               "AntseedChannels"
version:            "7"
chainId:            <deployment chain>
verifyingContract:  <channels contract address>

ReserveAuth

Signed by the buyer to authorize a session budget. One signature per session.

Field	Type	Description
channelId	bytes32	keccak256(abi.encode(buyer, seller, salt))
maxAmount	uint128	Maximum USDC (6 decimals) the seller may lock
deadline	uint256	Unix timestamp after which this auth expires

SpendingAuth

Signed by the buyer on each request to authorize cumulative spending.

Field	Type	Description
channelId	bytes32	Same channel identifier as the ReserveAuth
cumulativeAmount	uint256	Total USDC authorized so far (monotonically increasing)
metadataHash	bytes32	Hash of request metadata (input/output token counts, model, etc.)

The seller submits the latest SpendingAuth to settle() or close() on-chain. The contract verifies the buyer's signature and charges the cumulative amount from the locked deposit.

Session Budget and Budget Exhaustion

The maxAmount in the ReserveAuth caps total USDC the seller can charge in a session. As the buyer signs SpendingAuths with increasing cumulativeAmount, the budget is consumed.

When the budget is exhausted, the seller settles the current session (calling close()) and returns HTTP 402 to the buyer, triggering a new negotiation cycle (new ReserveAuth, new session).

Settlement

Active Settlement

The seller calls settle() with the latest buyer-signed SpendingAuth at any time during the session. This charges the buyer's locked deposit for the cumulative amount and credits the seller's earnings, while keeping the session open for further requests.

To finalize, the seller calls close() with the final SpendingAuth. This charges the cumulative amount, credits the seller, and releases any remaining locked deposit back to the buyer's available balance.

Timeout

If the seller disappears, the buyer calls requestClose() on AntseedChannels. This marks the session for timeout. After a 15-minute grace period, the buyer calls withdraw() to release the locked funds back to the buyer's deposit.

Token-to-USDC Conversion

Sellers publish per-model pricing in USD per million tokens (input, cached input, and output rates separately). The conversion from token consumption to USDC happens at the seller's published rate at the time of the request:

cost calculation

requestCostUSD  = (freshInputTokens * inputUsdPerMillion + cachedInputTokens * cachedInputUsdPerMillion + outputTokens * outputUsdPerMillion) / 1_000_000
totalCostUSDC   = sum(requestCosts) * 1_000_000  (6-decimal USDC)

cachedInputUsdPerMillion defaults to inputUsdPerMillion when not set by the seller.

Wallet

Each node's identity is a secp256k1 private key. The EVM address derived from this key serves as both the PeerId on the network and the on-chain wallet address. Set it via ANTSEED_IDENTITY_HEX env var (recommended for production) rather than the plaintext identity.key file.

identity = wallet

secp256k1 private key (32 bytes)
  → EVM address (20 bytes) = PeerId

There is no derivation step or two-key system. One secp256k1 key signs everything — protocol messages (using EIP-191 personal_sign with domain tags like "antseed-data-v1:" and "antseed-msg-v1:"), EIP-712 payment messages (ReserveAuth, SpendingAuth), and on-chain transactions. Verification uses ecrecover.

Funding

The AntseedDeposits contract's deposit(address buyer, uint256 amount) allows any address to fund a buyer's deposit — USDC is pulled from msg.sender and credited to the specified buyer. This decouples the funding source from the node identity — a team treasury, a hardware wallet, or another contract can fund the node without exposing the node's private key.

USDC on Base. 6 decimal places. All on-chain amounts are in USDC atomic units (1 USDC = 1,000,000).

Smart Contracts

contract architecture

AntseedRegistry       Central address book for all protocol contracts
AntseedStaking        Seller staking (holds stake USDC, binds to ERC-8004 agentId)
AntseedDeposits       Buyer deposits, seller payouts (holds buyer USDC)
AntseedChannels       Payment channel lifecycle (swappable, holds NO USDC)
AntseedEmissions      ANTS token emissions (USDC volume-based rewards)
ANTSToken             ANTS ERC-20 token (52M max supply)

Stable contracts (Staking, Deposits) hold funds and rarely change. The swappable contract (Channels) holds no USDC and can be redeployed by re-pointing via the Registry.

Identity uses the deployed ERC-8004 IdentityRegistry on Base.

Supported Chains

Chain	Chain ID	Status
base-mainnet	8453	Production (default)
base-sepolia	84532	Testnet

Contract addresses are built into the CLI for each chain — no manual configuration needed. The default chain is base-mainnet.

Base Mainnet Contract Addresses

Contract	Address
USDC (Circle)	0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913
AntseedRegistry	0xf33fC901BFa97326379A369401F4490E231B69B0
AntseedDeposits	0x0F7a3a8f4Da01637d1202bb5443fcF7F88F99fD2
AntseedChannels	0xBA66d3b4fbCf472F6F11D6F9F96aaCE96516F09d
AntseedStaking	0x3652E6B22919bd322A25723B94BB207602E5c8e6
AntseedStats	0x15649ff076BFa5e37e24EE3154a00503149954Fd
AntseedEmissions	0x36877fBa8Fa333aa46a1c57b66D132E4995C86b5
ANTSToken	0xa87EE81b2C0Bc659307ca2D9ffdC38514DD85263
ERC-8004 IdentityRegistry	0x8004A169FB4a3325136EB29fA0ceB6D2e539a432

All contracts verified on BaseScan.