acausal
system notes
if ai leaves people behind, compensation may arrive too late to be useful. acausal starts from the idea of getting paid beforehand: someone buys a limited share of the project’s future income, and that money funds an exit for present token holders.
acausal allocates a present cash payment to holders who retire tokens, in exchange for a limited claim on later creator-fee receipts. the claim is offered on fixed terms. bidders set its price.
status: atomic launch, trading, fee collection, settlement and recovery tested on a local copy of base. no public token or funded offer is live.
founder terms · proposed
posted cash is split 20% to the founder, 10% to operations, and the remainder to compensation. the founder also receives 5% of initial token supply: locked for seven days, then released linearly over 30 days. 95% seeds the initial pool. there is no initial founder purchase.
nothing vests during the first seven days; the allocation is fully available on day 37. a claim releases tokens, not cash. selling still requires liquidity. founder cash withdrawals are independent of the retirement rounds.
the proposed founder, token-admin and operations wallet is 0x9CF20dAfEfd34B6c02eFA9f20C99C06D4f4e2A13. it receives both cash shares; operations funds are accounted for separately. these are proposed launch terms, not a live allocation.
participate
not deployed. no live contract addresses are configured and wallet transactions are unavailable.
a buyer offers cash for a capped share of future receipts. holders choose whether to tender tokens at the resulting price. a round needs its full quota; otherwise bids and tokens become withdrawal credits.
no live round loaded. figures will come from the configured contracts.
buy future receipts
the highest bid is binding. an outbid amount becomes withdrawable. receipts may be zero; the ceiling is not guaranteed income.
offer tokens for retirement
enter your total tender, not an additional amount. set zero to cancel before the deadline. cancellations create a separate token withdrawal credit. accepted tokens are permanently burned.
your claims
select an older round to release its tender. withdrawal credits include released claims from all rounds. claiming does not require joining the current round.
| selected-round tender | — tokens |
|---|---|
| unreleased payment / token refund | — |
| cash withdrawal credit | — usdc |
| token withdrawal credit | — tokens |
| income withdrawal credit | — usdc |
permissionless maintenance
anyone may pay gas for these steps. a failed cash transfer preserves credits. after the abort deadline, token recovery can proceed even while usdc is restricted; cash recovery depends on the restriction clearing.
no guaranteed exit or full liquidation. below 20 accounting base units, new rounds stop; existing claims remain available. pool-fee conversions have no guaranteed exchange rate. do not send tokens directly to the income vault.
system diagram
read from top to bottom. the advance is paid by a present buyer. later income determines what that buyer recovers.
01 income and reserve
with no active buyer claim, compensation accumulates in reserve. the founder and operations amounts round down; residue stays with compensation.
02 offer and settlement
r = the same fraction of free reserve
k = the same fraction of trailing 180-day compensation income
outbid principal becomes withdrawable
may reduce or cancel until closing
fund holder credits with all r + b
activate buyer claim only if b > 0
r returns to reserve
no burn and no buyer claim
accepted tokens and cash are allocated proportionally when oversubscribed. withdrawals are independent. if settlement fails, all its changes roll back; anyone can abort after the recovery deadline.
03 later income
x: eligible compensation income since activation
s: accounting supply fixed for the offer
a 5% retirement cannot sell the entire income stream
holder compensation is not clawed back
funded credits remain withdrawable
a new successful-round cycle cannot start before the full 180-day term ends. a reserve-only exit uses r, needs no buyer and creates no future claim.
reserve $1,000 → r = $50. historical compensation $7,000 → k = $350. buyer bids $250 → holders receive $300 now. if later eligible compensation is $7,000, buyer collects $350. if it is zero, buyer collects zero.
5% is provisional. accounting supply means authorized global issuance less facility retirements; it is not simply base-local supply. launcher binding and usdc recovery have been exercised locally. new rounds stop below 20 accounting base units; outstanding claims remain withdrawable. no future ai payment is assumed.
earlier draft 04: calculator and notes (superseded)
the calculator below sells priority over the full compensation stream. it predates the proportional limit and gross-income definition shown above. retained for comparison; do not use it as the current specification.
1. terms
| source of income | actual creator cash receipts after venue charges. trading volume is not revenue. |
|---|---|
| allocation | 20% founder; 10% operations; remainder to the compensation account. |
| buyer’s right | priority over that compensation portion, up to a fixed cash ceiling k. no claim on the founder or operations portions. |
| term | 180 days from successful settlement, or until k is collected. whichever comes first. |
| holder payment | existing reserve r plus advance b, allocated to exactly q retired tokens. no additional fee on r + b. |
| failure to fill q | return the advance and all tendered tokens. keep the reserve. no buyer right activates. |
2. calculation
these are hypothetical cash amounts. editing k changes the offered contract; editing b changes its price. in an actual auction, k would already be fixed.
settlement succeeds in this example.
| paid to retiring holders | $500.00 |
|---|---|
| buyer’s active ceiling | $500.00 |
| buyer collects | $500.00 |
| buyer’s net cash result | $100.00 |
| founder receipts | $200.00 |
| operations receipts | $100.00 |
| reserve after receipts | $200.00 |
| advance returned | $0.00 |
| tokens retired | 100 |
holder cash is funded at settlement. the buyer’s ceiling is not funded then. if later receipts are zero, the buyer can lose the entire advance.
holder payment = r + b
buyer collection = min(eligible compensation receipts, k)
buyer cash result = collection − b
founder and operations amounts are rounded down per receipt in the model; the remainder goes to compensation. displayed dollars are rounded to cents. the example processes one receipt before expiry and one at expiry.
3. procedure
- publish the receipt source, ceiling k, term, reserve r, quota q, and deadlines. freeze these before taking bids.
- accept fully funded bids for that same claim. the proposed rule selects the highest bid; equal bids use earliest funding priority. the winner pays its own bid.
- show holders the funded price, (r + b) / q. holders may tender or withdraw until the deadline. an oversubscribed round allocates acceptance proportionally.
- if enough tokens are tendered, retire exactly q and allocate r + b to holder withdrawals. only then activate the buyer’s receipt claim. otherwise return the advance and tenders.
- route eligible compensation receipts to the buyer until the ceiling or expiry. any excess stays in reserve. funded withdrawals remain available after expiry.
only one advance can be active. later buyer deposits cannot repay an earlier buyer. a preannounced reserve-only round can proceed without a buyer; it creates no receipt claim. with no reserve and no advance, there is nothing to distribute.
what the buyer is estimating
let x be compensation receipts processed during the term. ignoring costs and time preference, the buyer values the claim at its expectation of min(x, k). an estimate of average revenue alone is insufficient.
for example, fix k = $500 and b = $400. certain creator receipts of $1,000 pay the buyer $500. a 50/50 chance of $0 or $2,000 has the same average creator receipts but pays the buyer $250 on average. expected net results: +$100 and −$150. the ceiling matters.
the ratio b / k is the price paid per dollar of maximum possible collection. it is not a probability. discounting, receipt uncertainty, contract risk, competition, and bidder overlap with token holders all affect the bid. a bidder can also overpay.
4. decision-theory notes
the starting question is whether a compensation policy specified now can be useful to counterparties operating over longer horizons. the proposed policy is narrow: this receipt claim becomes available only after a funded token exit. it does not depend on identifying a future ai.
yudkowsky’s timeless decision theory treats decisions as computational processes and examines dependencies between them. an onchain precommitment alone does not establish such a dependency. acausal currently implements an accounting rule, not a tdt decision procedure.
the missing argument is specific: which other decision depends on this policy, why, and through what model? without an answer, the future-ai interpretation remains a hypothesis. ordinary present-day buyers are sufficient for the proposed transfers.
hanson’s market-scoring work is relevant to eliciting beliefs through consequential choices. here, the auction prices a cash-flow claim. there is no binary event, probability market, or takeover oracle. adding one would require a separate settlement rule and funding; it is not part of this design.
the original objective was an early payout against ai-related losses. the facility can fund early exits if somebody buys the claim. it has no demonstrated negative correlation with those losses. if activity and liquidity disappear together, it may be least useful when wanted most.
5. open questions
- receipt control. prove that the selected launcher’s rewards can be collected permissionlessly and cannot be redirected while a claim is active. fee tokens are not automatically cash.
- round policy. specify how k and q are set, the minimum offer, scheduling, and treatment of the final token units. the calculator does not choose these.
- collection timing. checkpoint old rewards before activation. specify what happens when a receipt is collected late. the current model uses processing time; at expiry it belongs to reserve.
- cost to remaining holders. future compensation receipts service the buyer first. compare the advance with a reserve-only exit under the same receipts; count actual cash and the remaining token supply.
- independent demand. record deposits and repayments separately. identify known affiliated bids and tender overlap. a founder-funded bid is not evidence of an outside buyer.
founder receipts
the draft allocates 20% of actual creator receipts to the founder. $5,000 of such receipts produces $1,000 before uncovered costs and tax. this is a conditional calculation, not an activity forecast. this historical draft’s token-allocation proposal is superseded by the founder terms above.
implementation order
resolve the open rules; verify a fee-source adapter; implement and test the contracts; rehearse the full launch on a pinned fork; inspect costs and permissions. base is the working chain candidate. the approximately $50 budget is a constraint, not evidence that the complete deployment fits.
the next implementation milestone is a complete transfer sequence against a verified fee source.
references: yudkowsky, timeless decision theory (2010); yudkowsky and soares, functional decision theory (2017); hanson, logarithmic market scoring rules (2002 draft).