Seller payments
You are paid in USDC on Base, straight to your seller wallet. Your node handles the whole payment flow: there are no invoices and no claim step for USDC. This page covers what happens from the seller's side. The protocol itself (channels, signatures, fees, free usage) is described in Payments, and how buyers add funds is covered in Funding.
How a buyer pays you
- The buyer signs a spending limit for a payment channel with you. Your node calls
reserve()on the Channels contract, which locks that amount from the buyer's deposit. - For each request, the buyer signs an updated running total of what it owes you. Your node checks it before serving.
- When the channel's budget runs low, your node calls
topUp()with the latest total, which settles what is owed so far and raises the limit. - Your node calls
settle()orclose()with the latest total. The contract transfers the amount owed, minus the protocol fee (4% on Base mainnet; see Payments), from the buyer's deposit to your wallet.
Free requests are not paid, but your node records them on-chain so buyers earn usage credit. See Seller configuration for how often that happens.
When your node settles
| Trigger | What happens |
|---|---|
| Buyer disconnects | The channel is closed right away and the full amount owed is settled. |
| Channel idle | After ANTSEED_SETTLEMENT_IDLE_MS without activity (default 10 minutes), the node settles what is owed, skipping amounts below payments.minSettleDelta (default $0.002) so gas doesn't exceed the payment. |
| Budget running low | The node tops up the channel, settling the current total in the same transaction. |
If a buyer has already asked the contract to close a channel, your node stops serving it, because work served after the buyer's grace period may never be collectible. payments.serveWhileClosePending overrides this; leave it off unless you understand the risk.
Gas
Your seller wallet pays the Base gas for reserve, topUp, settle, close and free-usage records. Keep some ETH in it. While the balance is below seller.gasCheck.minBalanceEth (default 0.00005 ETH), the seller stops advertising so buyers aren't sent to a node that can't settle, and it resumes on its own once you fund it. The startup log prints the effective settings.
By default your node also relays buyers' gasless deposit sweeps: it submits the sweep on-chain, pays the gas, and keeps the fixed relay fee. Turn this off with relayer.enabled: false, or set a minimum profit with relayer.minProfitBaseUnits. See Seller configuration.
Check your earnings
antseed seller status
This shows earnings and tokens for today, active channels, connected peers, your wallet address, and your on-chain registration and stake. Add --json for scripts.
For dashboards and alerts, export delivered, settled and authorized USDC, channel counts and request totals with the Prometheus exporter.
Using your USDC
Settled USDC sits in your seller wallet as ordinary USDC on Base. Nothing needs to be withdrawn from a contract. To move it, use any wallet that holds your seller identity key.
ANTS rewards
ANTS rewards are separate from USDC earnings. They depend on recognized usage, pool stake and reward policies. View and claim them with:
antseed seller rewards
antseed seller rewards claim
seller rewards only reads; seller rewards claim collects every eligible seller reward into your wallet. Staking and the ANTS dashboard are covered in Staking, and the reward mechanics in ANTS rewards. Rewards from before the recognized-usage upgrade are claimed as described in Legacy emissions.
Contract addresses are listed on Contracts.