GRID from zero, 2 of 7: how the GRID pays, and what GRID is

Part 2 of 7 in GRID from zero. Part 1 said what the GRID is. This part follows the money.

Step 1: a buyer pays for a call

A buyer pays in USDC, a token worth one US dollar. The machine never names a price. Taifoon's broker does: it reads what the same service costs on the markets that sell it, takes the cost of serving it, and adds Taifoon's one cut of 20 %.

Step 2: the call runs, and is checked

A call counts only once it is verified. For AI model calls, some of the answers are replayed on a second machine and must match.

Step 3: the money is shared by work

Each machine is credited with the list value of the verified work it served. Ten calls served is ten calls credited, whoever owns the machine.

Step 4: the payout

The owner chooses how to be paid:

• in USDC: 70 % of the value. This is the rule of the Taifoon Sustainable Use License: 70 % to the contributor whose machine did the work, 20 % to the graders who checked it, 10 % to the ecosystem.
• in GRID: the full value, as GRID.

Cash is paid from Taifoon's payout vault, claimed by proof.

Status. Step 1 is live: buyers pay Taifoon for calls today. Steps 2 to 4 are written and BUILDING: the sharing by verified work and the payout vault are not switched on yet. Until they are, no machine is paid cash out of buyers' money.

Meanwhile: GRID for being there

The network needs machines before it has buyers, so a machine also earns GRID every hour it passes its probe:

• base rate per hour: GPU 10 GRID, RPC endpoint 1 GRID, storage 0.1 GRID
• up to 5× when a kind has few machines, shrinking as more join
• up to 3× when buyers ask for more than the GRID holds
• FPGA earns nothing until there is a check that can tell an FPGA from a fast ordinary computer

The live rate of each kind is on the earning side of pricing.

What GRID is, exactly

• A credit for Taifoon services. One GRID buys 0.01 USDC of them: model grades, gateway calls, GPU time.
• Soulbound. It stays in the wallet that earned it. It cannot be sent, sold or exchanged for money. There is no GRID token to buy anywhere.
• Recorded on Taifoon mainnet, Taifoon's own network, not on a public market.
• Minted every 6 hours, inside a daily ceiling tied to what buyers actually paid over the last week. Until 23 March 2027 a small floor keeps new machines earning.

Next: part 3, what a vault is.