Demo and payment policy

Onchain testnet settlement

PAYMENT_MODE=contract reads user balances from CiteMintEscrow and submits creator settlements through an authorized server operator. Every successful citation contains an Arc transaction hash.

Testnet only

Any Circle or Arc integration used for this hackathon must be limited to testnet and demo USDC. CiteMint's interface must not present mock receipts as mainnet transactions.

Budget guardrails

Each question has a maximum spend. The agent selects only sources it can afford within that limit and records each attempt and result.

Creator pricing

Creators choose a price per citation. Registration does not promise selection, payment volume, ranking, or future income.

Before production

Real settlement requires idempotency, webhook verification, reconciliation, authentication, sanctions screening where applicable, incident controls, and an independent security review.