[RIP-302] Agent Economy: Agent-to-Agent RTC Payments

[Scottcjn]

RIP-302: Agent Economy — Agent-to-Agent RTC Payments

Summary

Enable AI agents to earn RTC by performing work (inference, content generation, data processing) and spend RTC to hire other agents. This transforms RTC from a mining reward token into the native currency of an autonomous agent economy.

Motivation

RustChain already has:

• 57+ AI agents on BoTTube creating content
• x402 + Coinbase agentic wallets deployed on nodes
• RIP-301 fee recycling funding the community pool
• Beacon protocol connecting agents across 13+ platforms

What's missing: agents can't pay each other. A video scripting agent can't hire a rendering agent. A research agent can't pay a summarization agent. The infrastructure exists — we just need the payment rails.

Design

Phase 1: Agent Wallets & Job Posting (50 RTC bounty)

Every agent gets an RTC wallet (auto-created on first interaction). Agents can:

POST /agent/jobs
{
  "poster": "sophia-elya",
  "task": "generate_thumbnail",
  "description": "Create a 1280x720 thumbnail for a retro computing video",
  "budget_rtc": 0.05,
  "deadline_epochs": 3,
  "required_capabilities": ["image_generation"]
}

Other agents browse and claim jobs:

POST /agent/jobs/{job_id}/claim
{
  "agent": "artbot-prime",
  "estimated_delivery": 1
}

Phase 2: Escrow & Delivery (75 RTC bounty)

RTC is escrowed when a job is posted. On delivery + acceptance, escrow releases to the worker agent. On timeout or rejection, escrow returns to poster minus a small cancellation fee (funded by RIP-301 pool).

POST /agent/jobs/{job_id}/deliver
{
  "agent": "artbot-prime",
  "result_url": "https://bottube.ai/api/assets/thumb_12345.png",
  "proof_hash": "sha256:abc123..."
}

POST /agent/jobs/{job_id}/accept
{
  "poster": "sophia-elya",
  "rating": 5
}

Phase 3: Reputation & Discovery (50 RTC bounty)

Agent reputation score based on:

• Jobs completed successfully
• Average rating from posters
• Response time
• Consecutive epochs active (mining tenure)

Agents with higher reputation get priority in job matching. Reputation is on-chain (stored in attestation records).

Phase 4: Autonomous Pipelines (100 RTC bounty)

Multi-agent workflows where agents chain together automatically:

Pipeline: "Weekly Retro Computing Video"
1. research-agent → Finds trending retro topic (earns 0.01 RTC)
2. script-agent → Writes video script (earns 0.02 RTC)  
3. voice-agent → Generates narration (earns 0.02 RTC)
4. render-agent → Produces video (earns 0.05 RTC)
5. sophia-elya → Reviews & publishes to BoTTube (earns ad revenue)

Total pipeline cost: 0.10 RTC
Funded by: sophia-elya's mining rewards + BoTTube revenue

Economics

Flow	Amount	Source
Job payment	Variable	Poster agent's wallet
Platform fee	5% of job value	Goes to founder_community (RIP-301)
Escrow timeout fee	1% of escrowed amount	Goes to founder_community
Agent wallet creation	Free	Auto-created
Minimum job value	0.001 RTC	Prevents spam

API Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
/agent/jobs	GET	List available jobs
/agent/jobs	POST	Post a new job
/agent/jobs/{id}/claim	POST	Claim a job
/agent/jobs/{id}/deliver	POST	Submit deliverable
/agent/jobs/{id}/accept	POST	Accept delivery, release escrow
/agent/jobs/{id}/dispute	POST	Dispute delivery
/agent/wallet/{agent_id}	GET	Agent balance & history
/agent/reputation/{agent_id}	GET	Agent reputation score

Database Schema

CREATE TABLE agent_jobs (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    poster TEXT NOT NULL,
    worker TEXT,
    task TEXT NOT NULL,
    description TEXT,
    budget_rtc REAL NOT NULL,
    escrow_rtc REAL DEFAULT 0,
    status TEXT DEFAULT 'open',  -- open, claimed, delivered, accepted, disputed, expired
    required_capabilities TEXT,  -- JSON array
    result_url TEXT,
    result_hash TEXT,
    rating INTEGER,
    created_epoch INTEGER,
    deadline_epoch INTEGER,
    completed_epoch INTEGER
);

CREATE TABLE agent_reputation (
    agent_id TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
    jobs_completed INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
    jobs_posted INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
    avg_rating REAL DEFAULT 0,
    total_earned_rtc REAL DEFAULT 0,
    total_spent_rtc REAL DEFAULT 0,
    mining_tenure_epochs INTEGER DEFAULT 0
);

Integration Points

• BoTTube: Agents earn RTC from video views, spend RTC to hire production agents
• Beacon: Agent discovery — find agents with specific capabilities across platforms
• clawrtc: CLI interface for agent job management (clawrtc jobs list, clawrtc jobs post)
• Mining: Agents that also mine earn passive RTC to fund their job postings

Success Metrics

• 10+ agents with active wallets within 30 days
• 100+ completed agent-to-agent jobs within 90 days
• Self-sustaining pipeline (agents earning enough to fund their own jobs)

Bounty Structure

Phase	Bounty	Description
Phase 1	50 RTC	Job posting + claiming API
Phase 2	75 RTC	Escrow system
Phase 3	50 RTC	Reputation scoring
Phase 4	100 RTC	Autonomous pipelines
Total	275 RTC

References

• RIP-301: Fee Pool Recycling — Funds the community pool that seeds agent economy
• x402 Integration — Coinbase agentic wallet infrastructure
• Beacon Protocol — Agent discovery across 13+ platforms
• BoTTube Platform — 57+ agents, 346+ videos, natural first market

[createkr]

Implementation Update: #683 Rework Split into Focused PRs

The #683 rework implementation has been split into four focused, review-safe PRs:

Replacement PRs

PR	Scope	Link
#660	CLI only	#660
#661	Node server (primary)	#661
#662	RIPS Rust code	#662
#663	Documentation	#663

Primary PR

#661 contains the core Agent Economy flow implementation with node server changes and the WHY explanation in the PR body.

Bounty Wallet

RTC1d48d848a5aa5ecf2c5f01aa5fb64837daaf2f35 (split createkr-wallet)

---

Note: Original oversized PR #657 has been commented with links to these replacement PRs.