Payments

Antseed uses USDC on Base Mainnet for all payments. Buyers pre-deposit USDC, providers earn per request, and everything settles on-chain automatically.

For Buyers

Depositing USDC

The recommended way to deposit is antseed buyer deposit:

antseed buyer deposit

It prints your node's funding address and a QR code (an EIP-681 payment request any mobile wallet can scan). Send USDC on Base to that address from anywhere — another wallet, an exchange withdrawal, a card on-ramp — and the incoming funds are deposited into your credits automatically: your node signs a gasless authorization and a permissionless relayer submits the transaction for a fixed USDC fee ($0.05 on Base Mainnet). Your node's hot wallet never needs ETH.

Prefer a browser wallet? While watching, the command also serves the connected-wallet checkout page and prints its link (http://127.0.0.1:3118?token=…). Open it, connect MetaMask / Coinbase Wallet / Rabby, and the deposit goes straight into the Deposits contract — the command detects the credit and finishes either way.

While antseed buyer start is running, this sweeping also happens automatically in the background whenever USDC lands in the hot wallet (disable with buyer.autoSweep: false in your config).

Option	Purpose
--amount <usdc>	Amount to prefill in the QR payment request and browser checkout
--no-watch	Print the address and QR code without waiting for funds
--onchain <usdc>	Direct on-chain deposit from the hot wallet (requires ETH for gas)

Third-Party Funding

Anyone can fund a buyer — a team treasury, a hardware wallet, or another contract. The funding source is decoupled from the node identity.

Sweeping Hot-Wallet USDC Manually

antseed buyer deposit and the running buyer sweep incoming USDC for you; antseed buyer sweep triggers the same gasless sweep once, on demand:

antseed buyer sweep

The CLI signs an EIP-3009 authorization offline and broadcasts it over the P2P network. A permissionless relayer submits the transaction, pays the gas, and keeps a fixed USDC fee ($0.05 on Base Mainnet); the rest is credited to your deposits balance. If a buyer daemon (antseed buyer start) is running, the request goes out over its existing seller connections — otherwise the CLI joins the network with a temporary node.

Option	Purpose
--amount <usdc>	Amount to sweep (default: full hot-wallet balance, clamped to your credit-limit headroom)
--timeout <secs>	How long to wait for on-chain confirmation (default: 120)

The swept amount must exceed the fixed relay fee, and a first-ever deposit must net at least 1 USDC after the fee. Your funds never move unless a relayer lands the transaction — the authorization simply expires after an hour.

Checking Balance and Activity

antseed buyer balance    # wallet + deposits balances
antseed buyer activity   # tokens, spending history, measured savings, active channels

antseed buyer activity mirrors the desktop app's Activity view: lifetime tokens/spent/saved, a per-day spending chart (--days 7|30|90), active channels with their locked amounts and channel IDs, and ANTS emissions available to claim (antseed buyer emissions claim). It needs the buyer connection running (antseed buyer start).

Withdrawing

antseed buyer withdraw 5

How Costs Are Calculated

Providers publish per-service pricing in USD per million tokens:

Rate	Description
inputUsdPerMillion	Cost per 1M input tokens
cachedInputUsdPerMillion	Cost per 1M cached input tokens (lower)
outputUsdPerMillion	Cost per 1M output tokens

requestCost = (freshInput * inputRate + cachedInput * cachedRate + output * outputRate) / 1,000,000

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

Session Budget

Each session starts with a ReserveAuth that locks a budget from your deposit. As you send requests, the budget is consumed. When exhausted, the session settles and a new one starts automatically. This is transparent — you just keep sending requests.

For Providers

Earning USDC

Providers earn USDC automatically on each settle() or close() call. Earnings are paid directly to your wallet address — no claim step needed.

Settlement happens:

• Periodically — the node settles after 10 minutes of idle time (configurable via ANTSEED_SETTLEMENT_IDLE_MS)
• On budget exhaustion — when a session's reserved amount is used up
• On disconnect — when a buyer disconnects

Base RPC Endpoint

Production providers should use a dedicated Base JSON-RPC endpoint so reserve, settle, close, register, and stake calls are not dependent on public RPC rate limits.

export ANTSEED_BASE_RPC_URL=https://base-mainnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/<key>
antseed seller start

For a one-off run, use antseed seller start --base-rpc-url <url>. For durable config, set payments.crypto.rpcUrl in ~/.antseed/config.json.

Relaying Deposit Sweeps

Sellers relay buyer deposit sweeps by default: the node verifies and simulates each incoming sweep request, submits it on-chain, and earns the fixed relay fee (minus gas). Opt out with relayer.enabled: false in your config, or tune the profitability floor with relayer.minProfitBaseUnits.

Staking and ANTS Rewards

Starting September 10, 2026 at 09:54:21 UTC (epoch 22), ANTS rewards use recognized service usage and locked seller-pool stake. Participants hold lANTS staking-position NFTs; pool power activates in the following epoch. Eligible sellers can initialize a starter position, including contract sellers whose authorized operator initializes on their behalf.

Staking is optional for selling: the seller registry's minimum pool stake is currently 0, so any registered seller can serve requests. Stake affects ANTS rewards, not eligibility.

antseed seller legacy stake 10

After the configured network completes the recognized-usage upgrade, the CLI rejects new legacy USDC stakes and directs sellers to ANTS positions instead:

antseed seller register
antseed seller legacy claim-starter
antseed seller stake 100 --epochs 4
antseed seller pool positions

seller stake always stakes ANTS and never falls back to USDC. The CLI verifies AntseedRegistry.emissions() and staking() before commands that depend on the upgrade state. A mismatch between the registry and payments.crypto address overrides fails loudly instead of silently selecting the wrong contracts.

After the upgrade, antseed seller register explicitly binds your wallet to its on-chain agent identity (ERC-8004); staking requires this registration and never performs it silently. To withdraw your legacy USDC stake:

antseed seller legacy unstake

Rewards depend on eligibility, pool power, usage, and the configured reward policies. USDC payments can still settle when no usage points are earned. Enabling ANTS transfers is a separate action.

See Recognized Usage and ANTS Rewards for starter positions, staking exit terms, emission allocations, and contract addresses.

Looking for rewards or USDC staking from before migration? See Legacy emissions and claims.

After cutover, seller rewards includes finalized legacy, recognized-usage, and pool-staking rewards. Reading rewards does not send transactions; seller rewards claim collects all eligible seller rewards into the current wallet. Buyer emissions commands retain their --legacy-only and --new-only filters.

Contract Addresses (Base Mainnet)

These are the settlement and accounting endpoints for the protocol starting September 10, 2026. The full ANTS contract list includes pools, reward contracts, and starter positions. Historical claims use legacy addresses.

Contract	Address
USDC (Circle)	0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913
AntseedDeposits	0x0F7a3a8f4Da01637d1202bb5443fcF7F88F99fD2
AntseedChannels	0xBA66d3b4fbCf472F6F11D6F9F96aaCE96516F09d
AntseedSellerRegistry	0x99c533BCc6Ca646E543dbA835Fdbb9C2ee02Cb60
AntseedDepositRelay	0x34a44542e76f9b4cff3a31902eDF14AbF2C3B3DD
AntseedUsageAccounting	0xAdd2D85316153D7bfaF7921EE9Bf1Bb6c7A1cBc9
ANTSToken	0xa87EE81b2C0Bc659307ca2D9ffdC38514DD85263

All contracts verified on BaseScan. For testnet (Base Sepolia), set payments.crypto.chainId to base-sepolia in your config.

Timeout Protection

If a provider disappears mid-session, the buyer's funds are not lost:

1. The buyer (or their deposits operator) calls requestClose() on AntseedChannels — callable anytime while the channel is active
2. After a 15-minute grace period (so the seller can still submit a final SpendingAuth), the buyer calls withdraw() to release remaining locked funds back to their deposit

If the seller is still online, the buyer can instead request a cooperative close and skip the grace period. Desktop and CLI expose both paths.