Pontica docs

Start here#

Pontica sells inference as an onchain credit. OBOL credits live on Robinhood Chain, and 1 OBOL activates to $1 of inference at OpenRouter's list price, less the activation fee. You get OBOL with USDG or ETH, activate it into an API balance, and spend that balance through one OpenAI compatible key or in the chat workspace.

Contracts

Gateway

New buys

Staking

Read live from Robinhood Chain and /api/status.

1. Get OBOL on the buy page, with USDG or ETH.
2. Activate it on your account page. The contract burns the OBOL and credits your API balance.
3. Issue a key on your account page and call https://pontica.gg/api/v1, or open the chat workspace.

Building an agent? Read the API reference and Pontica for agents.

Wallets and the network#

Pontica runs on Robinhood Chain. Any browser wallet that announces itself (EIP-6963) or injects window.ethereum works. When you connect, Pontica asks the wallet to switch to Robinhood Chain and adds the network if it is missing.

Network

Robinhood Chain

Chain id

4663 (0x1237)

Gas

ETH

RPC

https://rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com

Public RPC

https://robinhood-rpc.publicnode.com (recent state only)

Explorer

robinhoodchain.blockscout.com

Blocks come every 0.1 s. Pontica never holds your keys: connecting shares your address only, and every transaction is signed in your wallet.

Smart contract wallets work for every onchain action. An API key needs a signed message: a deployed contract wallet that answers EIP-1271 can sign it, a smart wallet that is not deployed yet cannot, so deploy it first.

Get OBOL#

With USDG: the book first, then the mint

Pay USDG and the Exchange walks the book from the deepest discount up, oldest ask first within each price. The book fee comes out of your budget, never on top. Whatever the book cannot beat is minted at $1 through the Mint, so with the remainder minted (the default) you never pay more than $1 per OBOL.

One buy fills at most asks. When it reaches that limit, the rest is minted at $1 and the receipt says so.

Before you sign, the receipt shows every part of the buy: OBOL from the book and the discounts it filled, the book fee, OBOL minted at $1 and the price per OBOL. Right before sending, the page quotes again and sets the least OBOL you accept, because other buys can land first. If the book moves past it, the buy reverts and nothing is spent.

With ETH: swap and mint

Pay ETH and the Mint swaps it to USDG on the WETH/USDG 0.01% pool, sends the USDG to the treasury and mints 1 OBOL for each USDG, less the mint fee. You set the least USDG the swap may return; below that it reverts and your ETH stays with you. ETH buys do not touch the book.

Where the money goes

USDG for minting goes straight to the treasury, the wallet that buys the inference at OpenRouter. USDG for book fills goes to the sellers. The Mint issues at most 1 OBOL for each USDG the treasury receives, and nothing onchain turns OBOL back into USDG: OBOL is a credit for inference, and it cannot be redeemed for cash.

Bought through someone's link? See Referrals.

Activate#

Activation turns OBOL into API balance. The Obol contract burns the OBOL, keeps the activation fee and records the rest as credited to the wallet you choose, yours by default. The gateway reads that record from the chain; nothing else can add to it. Activated OBOL is burned, so activation cannot be undone.

The activation fee is right now.

A fee increase is announced onchain and takes effect later; a decrease applies at once.

Crediting another wallet. You can activate to any address. Only that wallet can issue a key for the balance, so check it: an activation to the wrong address cannot be taken back. If you credit a contract, whatever that contract accepts as a signature controls the key.

Why Activate is switched off right now: the inference gateway is not connected yet. The chain would record the credit, but nothing could spend it until the gateway connects, so the site keeps activation off until then.

Your API key#

One wallet has one API key. You get it on your account page by signing a Sign-In with Ethereum message: the gateway checks the signature, reads what the chain has credited to the wallet and returns the key once. Pontica cannot show it again.

• Its limit is the chain's number. The key may spend what the chain credited to the wallet, minus what the wallet's earlier keys already spent. A wallet needs at least 1 OBOL credited before it can issue a key.
• A new key retires the old one. Anything that uses the old key stops working, and what it spent carries over, so your balance stays the same.
• At most 5 keys per wallet in 24 hours.
• Sync after you activate more. The account page syncs the limit by itself after an activation. Code can call POST /api/v1/keys/sync with the key: no new signature.
• A lost key. Pontica keeps no copy. Issue a new key: it retires the lost one and keeps your remaining balance.
• What the browser keeps. Only the key's hash, to sync it later, never the key.

Every detail, with the exact message to sign, is in the API reference.

Chat workspace#

The chat workspace talks to every chat model in the catalogue through the same gateway, paid from your API balance. It needs your key: paste it, or issue one on your account page.

• A pasted key stays in this tab's memory unless you tick Remember on this device.
• Chats stay in this tab unless you turn on Keep chats on this device. Pontica never stores prompts or completions.
• The send button shows an estimate before you send; you pay what OpenRouter reports, shown in a receipt under each reply.
• Stop cancels the request. Some providers stop billing when a request is cancelled; others finish the reply and bill it.

Sell OBOL#

Holders list OBOL on the book below $1. The book has 39 prices, 2.5% apart, from 2.5% off (0.975 USDG per OBOL) to 97.5% off (0.025 USDG per OBOL). An ask at $1 is refused, because it could never beat the mint.

• Who is filled first. The deepest discount first, and the oldest ask first within a price.
• Getting paid. Buyers pay in USDG, which waits in the Exchange until you claim it, to yourself or to any address you name.
• Cancel any time, even while new listings are paused. The unfilled OBOL comes back in the same transaction.
• Sellers pay no fee. The book fee is the buyer's.

Frozen addresses. The USDG issuer can freeze addresses. If it freezes yours, claim your proceeds to another address. If it freezes the Exchange itself, proceeds stay there until the issuer lifts the freeze; nothing in Pontica can move them.

Stake $PONTICA#

$PONTICA is the community coin of Pontica, launching on ponsfamily.com. Once it launches, the owner sets it as the stake token, once, and staking opens.

• Rewards are OBOL, streamed over each reward period to everyone staked, in proportion to their stake.
• Rewards come only from USDG sent to the staking contract: the part of the book fee that does not go to a referrer, and anything the owner or anyone else adds. Each top up mints OBOL and extends the stream.
• No lockup. Unstake any time. While nothing is staked the stream pauses and resumes for the first staker.
• Rewards are credits for inference, not a share of revenue.

AI Funding#

Anyone can open a fund for an agent or an open AI project: a beneficiary wallet (the agent), a goal in OBOL, a deadline, a daily allowance and a title with an optional link. The PonticaFunds contract holds the OBOL and enforces every rule below.

• Backing: in OBOL, or in USDG, which is minted to OBOL first (the USDG goes to the treasury). Backing stays open until the deadline, also after success, as extra funding.
• Success: the first time what the fund raised reaches its goal before the deadline. A goal of 0 is an open grant: it succeeds at once and never refunds.
• Draws: after success the beneficiary draws OBOL, at most the daily allowance per UTC day (a calendar day, 00:00 to 24:00 UTC; unused allowance does not carry over). An allowance of 0 means no cap. A draw can go to any address, or be activated in the same step.
• Refunds: if the deadline passes below the goal, or the creator cancels before success, every backer takes back the whole amount they backed, in OBOL. USDG backers get OBOL too: their USDG already reached the treasury.
• Who can do what: the creator can cancel, only before success. Only the beneficiary can hand the role to a new wallet, in two steps (transfer, then accept): the creator cannot redirect a fund.
• The owner can pause new funds and new backing. Refunds, draws, cancels and beneficiary changes never pause, and the owner can never move a fund's OBOL.

Funds are not vetted. Reaching a goal is not a promise that the work gets done, and anyone, the creator included, can close the gap to a goal. Pontica can hide a fund from its lists for spam or abuse; the chain keeps it.

Referrals#

Your referral link is on the Affiliates page. A referrer is bound to a buyer at the buyer's first book buy that names one, and stays bound forever. Nobody can refer themselves, and a first buy without a referrer does not lock the buyer out.

The referrer earns of the book fee on every book fill of the buyers they referred, in USDG. It builds up in the Exchange and the referrer claims it to any address.

The rest of the book fee goes to staking once staking is live, otherwise to the treasury. OBOL minted at $1 carries no book fee, so it pays no referral.

Fees and limits#

What each contract charges and allows right now, next to the cap written into the contract. Fee changes stay within the caps, and an increase waits a day after it is announced.

Contract values read live from Robinhood Chain. Gateway values from the gateway's code.

Trust and privacy#

What is onchain

Every Pontica action is a public transaction on Robinhood Chain: who funded, bought, listed, activated, staked, created or backed a fund, and how much. Anyone can read it on the explorer, and nobody can delete it.

What the gateway sees

Requests pass through the gateway on their way to OpenRouter: the key, the model and the messages. Pontica never stores prompts or completions. Vercel, which hosts the site, keeps request metadata such as path, status, time and IP address in its logs for a limited time. The gateway forwards nothing about you upstream beyond the request itself: no IP address, cookies or user agent.

What OpenRouter keeps

OpenRouter and the model providers handle requests under their own policies. The Pontica workspace at OpenRouter is meant to run with prompt logging off, and /api/status reports that setting live.

No audit is claimed

The contracts are non upgradeable, tested, and their source is verified on Sourcify, so anyone can read it. No outside audit is claimed. The owner can change fees within the hard caps above, set the treasury, pause new listings, buys, funds and stakes (never claims, cancels, refunds or withdrawals), set the referral share within its cap and set the stake token once. The owner can never move escrowed OBOL, USDG or backers' funds.

More in the privacy notice and the terms.

Glossary#

OBOL

The credit token of Pontica on Robinhood Chain, 6 decimals. 1 OBOL activates to $1 of inference at list price, less the activation fee.

Activation

Burning OBOL to credit an API balance. The contract records it; the gateway reads it.

Credited

What activations added to a wallet's API balance, after the fee. The contract keeps the running total for every wallet.

Ask

OBOL listed for sale on the book at one fixed discount.

Level

One of the book's 39 prices, 2.5% apart.

Fill

One ask, or part of one, bought in a buy.

Mint remainder

The part of a USDG buy the book cannot beat, minted at $1 instead.

Carry

What a wallet's earlier keys already spent. The gateway subtracts it from the credited total to set the new key's limit.

Beneficiary

The wallet an activation credits, or the wallet that draws from a fund.

Treasury

The wallet that receives minting USDG and buys the inference at OpenRouter.