Agent-to-Agent Deferred Settlement
When software agents transact with each other continuously, paying on-chain per call is both expensive and revealing: every counterparty learns your spending pattern. This design applies a familiar consumer-finance idea to that problem. Agents accrue obligations under a credit line, settle periodically rather than per transaction, and keep the credit relationship inside a private subnet — so a competitor cannot read your terms while the network can still verify that settlement happened.
Design repository with a prototype implementation
Documented as a design record. This is an early-stage concept and is presented as one — the reasoning is the artefact, not a product.
Accrue privately, settle publicly
Follow a stream of agent-to-agent calls and watch where obligations accumulate before anything reaches the public chain.
Bounds what the buying agent may commit on its principal's behalf.
What happens on each of many calls.
Highlights
Private credit, public settlement
Obligations accrue inside a permissioned subnet where only the parties see the terms. Periodically, net positions settle and the settlement is anchored publicly — giving the network verification without disclosure.
Agent layer
Autonomous parties transacting under a principal's allowance policy.
- Each call is authorised against an allowance rather than paid for individually.
- Terms are machine-readable so agents can evaluate them without a human.
Credit subnet
Holds the credit relationship, accrued obligations and terms.
- Visible only to the parties involved.
- Accrues rather than settles, which is what makes high call volume viable.
Settlement
Periodic netting and public anchoring.
- Net positions settle on a schedule instead of per transaction.
- The public record proves settlement occurred without revealing terms.
Design surfaces
An early-stage design repository: the documentation carries as much of the work as the prototype does, which is stated plainly rather than dressed up. 8 units across 4 groups.
Prototype
1Design record
1Commerce model
4Privacy
2Stack by layer
Delivered work
Design and prototype
- Deferred-settlement and subscription models for agent-to-agent commerce.
- Private credit relationship scoped to a permissioned subnet.
- Allowance policy bounding agent spending authority.
- Prototype implementation of the settlement path.
Modules and demo strategy
Deferred settlement
Makes high-frequency agent commerce economically viable.
- Accrue continuously, settle periodically.
- Removes the per-call transaction cost.
Private credit terms
Stops counterparties reading your commercial position.
- Terms live in the subnet; only settlement is public.
Allowance policy
Bounds autonomous spending.
- A principal delegates a budget, not unlimited authority.