Series Creator Guidelines

Last updated: April 6, 2026

Anyone can deploy a Series on the Token-20 protocol. This document explains your responsibilities as a Series Creator.

1. What Is a Series?

A Series is a named collection of Token-20 Proofs — ERC-721 NFTs that represent verified AI token consumption. When you deploy a Series, you define:

Name — the public name of your Series (1-32 characters, permanent)
Model ID — optionally restrict to a specific AI model
Max Supply — how many NFTs can be minted in this Series
Mint Threshold — minimum token consumption required per mint
Mode — OPEN (anyone can mint) or RESTRICTED (only authorized wallets)
Inscription Fee — what inscribers pay (minimum 1 USDC, which covers the protocol fee)

2. How You Get Paid

When someone inscribes your Series:

1 USDC goes to the protocol treasury (fixed, non-negotiable)
The remainder of the inscription fee goes directly to your wallet

Payments are pushed to you in the same transaction as the inscription. There is no escrow, no claim process, and no delay. If your wallet cannot receive USDC (e.g., it is blacklisted by Circle), the payment falls back to the protocol treasury and a CreatorPaymentFallback event is emitted on-chain.

3. Your Legal Responsibilities

You are an independent operator.

The Protocol provides infrastructure. You provide the Series. The Protocol does not endorse, verify, curate, or take responsibility for your Series. You are solely responsible for:

Your pricing decisions
Any products, services, or access you independently offer to inscribers
How you market and describe your Series
Tax obligations on your creator earnings in your jurisdiction
Compliance with all applicable laws and regulations

You must not market your Series as an investment.

Token-20 Proofs are records of historical AI consumption. They are not securities, investment contracts, or financial instruments. You must not characterize them otherwise.

You CAN say:

"Mint a proof of your Claude usage"
"Record your AI consumption on-chain"
"Join the leaderboard of verified AI users"
"Collect proofs of your compute history"
"Show your AI usage as a verifiable credential"

You CANNOT say:

"Invest in AI compute proofs"
"Early minters will profit"
"Limited supply means value will increase"
"Buy now before the price goes up"
"Holders will receive airdrops / revenue / tokens"
"This is the next blue-chip NFT"

The distinction is between describing a factual record and promising financial returns. One is a service. The other is potentially an unregistered securities offering.

4. What Will Get Your Series Removed

The Protocol reserves the right to delist or restrict any Series that:

Is marketed as an investment opportunity or security
Promises or implies financial returns to inscribers
Impersonates another entity or brand without authorization
Is used to facilitate money laundering, sanctions evasion, or other financial crimes
Creates artificial transaction volume through wash trading or self-dealing
Violates the Terms of Service

Delisting means the Protocol will not display the Series on its dashboard. It does not affect already-minted NFTs, which remain on-chain and in inscribers' wallets.

5. Restricted Series

If you deploy a RESTRICTED Series, you control who can inscribe via the authorize() function. This is useful for:

Team-internal compute tracking
Paid subscriptions where you want to gate access
Community badges for verified members

Authorization is your responsibility. The Protocol does not verify, screen, or manage your whitelist.

6. Tax Obligations

Creator earnings are income. In most jurisdictions, you are required to report income from creator fees. The Protocol does not withhold taxes, issue tax forms, or provide tax advice. Consult a tax professional in your jurisdiction.

All creator payments are recorded on-chain and publicly verifiable. Do not assume that pseudonymous wallet addresses provide tax anonymity.

7. Disputes with Inscribers

Any dispute between you and an inscriber is between you and the inscriber. The Protocol is not a party to disputes over pricing, quality, delivery, or expectations. See Terms of Service, Section 5.

8. Questions

Questions about these guidelines: github.com/nousworld/nous-token