--- title: "AI tokens are becoming a currency. Watch who issues it." description: "Tokens are turning up as credit-card rewards, phone plans, dumpling vouchers and job offers. They look like money. They behave like company scrip, and the market that actually formed is for compute." image: "https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency/hero-v1.webp" url: "https://controlsquare.com/transmissions/strategy/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency/" --- # AI tokens are becoming a currency. Watch who issues it. A credit card that pays in tokens. A dumpling shop that gives them away. A bank that lends against them. The same idea showed up across China in a year, and it’s already here in a quieter form. It’s tempting to call this the birth of a currency. That’s half right, and the wrong half is the interesting part. ## In China, tokens already work like money inside one company’s walls ### Credit cards that pay in compute China Merchants Bank started in June with a card for AI developers: up to 1.8 billion MiniMax tokens for new cardholders. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank subsidises up to 3 billion Qwen tokens. In July, Moonshot AI [put its name on a Kimi card](https://restofworld.org/2026/china-ai-tokens-consumer-rewards-credit-cards-telcos-deepseek/) with the Agricultural Bank of China and American Express. These are reward programmes, not payment systems. You earn tokens by spending yuan, and spend them with one model provider. ### Phone plans, dumplings and resale China Telecom sells plans from 9.9 yuan a month for 10 million tokens, and its TokenHub sells subscriptions across 142 models. In Beijing, a dumpling shop called Jingu Yuan hands out 10 yuan of compute credits with a meal, more than 100 vouchers a day. China’s daily token consumption hit 500 trillion in mid-2026, up from 100 billion in early 2024. At that volume, tokens become something people compare, collect and trade. ### Banks that lend against token use Guangzhou’s Haizhu district launched a “token loan” in August. Banks including Bank of China and CITIC can weigh a company’s token production and consumption when setting credit limits, because young AI firms have few other assets. The district adds up to 2 million yuan a year toward token bills. A token stopped being a cost of goods. It became something a balance sheet can be measured against. ## In America, the same idea arrived as a perk ### A fourth line in the job offer Silicon Valley didn’t need a government. Candidates at OpenAI now ask how much inference compute they’ll get. Greg Brockman, in public: “The inference compute available to you is increasingly going to drive overall software productivity.” Tomasz Tunguz [calls inference a fourth part](https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-compute-compensation-software-engineers-greg-brockman-2026-3) of engineering pay, after salary, bonus and equity. He puts $100,000 of inference on a $375,000 salary, over 20% of the cost. ### Credits became the default price tag On the selling side, credits are the unit. Microsoft, Salesforce, Cursor, OpenAI, Adobe, HubSpot and Replit all sell AI through credits. Buyers get a pool and spend it. So the same object is a reward, a budget and a perk. No wonder people reach for the word currency. But why does it feel like money at all? ## Tokens fail the three jobs money has to do Money is a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. Score tokens against each. ### A medium of exchange that stops at the door A Kimi token buys Kimi. It doesn’t buy Qwen, and it doesn’t buy dumplings. Every scheme here is a closed loop with one issuer. The loop is the point. ### A unit of account that changes with the language This is the objection that settles it, and it has nothing to do with crypto. A [study of 25 European languages](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24718) found that the same text costs 1.23 tokens per word in English and about 3.1 in Greek and Maltese. A fixed bundle therefore buys roughly 2.5 times less work in Athens than in Dublin. A unit that changes with the customer’s language isn’t a unit of account. It’s different products at one price. ### A store of value that expires Balances expire. Models get retired. The price of a given capability keeps falling. Holding tokens isn’t saving. It’s holding a coupon with a date on it. ## What tokens resemble is company scrip ### Closed loop, issuer-priced, non-transferable Company scrip was money issued by an employer, spendable only at the company store. No exchange rate, no way out, often stamped non-transferable. The issuer set prices, so the issuer captured the value. Token rewards are the polite version. Voluntary, marketed as perks, on a screen instead of a paper note. The mechanics are the same. ![A brushed aluminium card reading AI TOKENS, with a robot-head chip and two green lights](https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency/body-v2.webp) _**FIG 1** The modern scrip note. One issuer, one balance, and a date when it stops working._ ### America outlawed it as pay in 1938 So why is it legal? Because it arrives as a perk, not a wage. US [rules don’t authorise wages in scrip](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/531.34). That’s why every modern version arrives as a reward rather than a wage, and why serious token pay is a budget on top of a salary. ## The market that formed is for compute, not tokens ### Forward curves for GPU rent If tokens were becoming money, the new financial products would be about tokens. They aren’t. Kalshi [launched compute forward curves](https://news.kalshi.com/p/compute-forward-curves) in July 2026, showing the implied price of renting B200, H200 and A100 chips. ICE and Ornn [announced futures](https://ir.theice.com/press/news-details/2026/ICE-and-Ornn-to-Launch-GPU-Compute-Futures-Contracts/default.aspx) on a transaction-based index, in dollars and cash-settled, pending approval. CME [announced two contracts](https://www.cmegroup.com/media-room/press-releases/2026/8/11/cme_group_and_silicondatatolaunchcomputefuturesonoctober5tounloc.html) for 5 October, each 730 GPU-hours of H100 or B200 rent. This week, CME’s own page still described the launch as pending regulatory review. ![A thin amber screen on a brushed aluminium console showing a rising line](https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency/body-v1.webp) _**FIG 2** A forward curve for compute. The first market built around AI priced the input, not the token._ ### The commodity, not the money CME’s announcement says it outright: “Compute has become the currency of the AI age.” Then it builds a forward curve, which is what an exchange builds for a commodity. Oil isn’t a currency either. The token is the retail packaging. Compute is what’s being priced. ## What is missing, and what would have to be true ### A unit of work, not a unit of tokens The unit would have to be a finished task, so a Greek buyer and an Irish one get the same thing for the same money. Nobody sells that. Everyone sells tokens. ### A clearing house for unused credits Companies sit on prepaid balances they can’t spend, transfer or value. A published price would tell them what those balances are worth. It doesn’t exist. ### A standard clause set for credits Expiry, model version, transfer rights, refunds if a model retires. Four plain clauses would remove most of the risk from a credit purchase. ## What to do this quarter ### If you buy AI Price in dollars per outcome, not per token. Check expiry, and check whether the credit survives a model change. Treat a prepaid balance as vendor financing, because that’s what it is. ### If you sell AI If you sell credits, you’re issuing a private currency. Decide what it’s worth in work, publish it, and keep the terms short enough that a buyer can repeat them. ### If you’re paid in it Take the salary. Treat the token budget as a tool for the job, not as savings, and get the number in writing so you can compare offers. ## The pricing problem comes first ### A token nobody can price is a positioning problem These schemes feel like money and fail like coupons because nobody has said, in one sentence, what a token buys. That’s a positioning problem before it’s a monetary one, and it’s the work we do. If you’re building something that sells in credits, [start a conversation with us](https://controlsquare.com/contact). ### Related posts: [![A sleek matte-black desktop printer in a dim workshop, with glowing software windows rising from its output tray instead of paper](https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/if-anyone-can-clone-your-ai-product/hero-v4.webp)AI products can be cloned in a week. Here’s what can’t be copied.](https://controlsquare.com/transmissions/strategy/if-anyone-can-clone-your-ai-product/) [![A glowing app wireframe standing alone on a lit plinth in the centre of an empty vaulted hall with unoccupied tiered benches](https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/why-your-ai-product-has-no-users/hero-v2.webp)Your AI product has no users. The problem is not the product.](https://controlsquare.com/transmissions/strategy/why-your-ai-product-has-no-users/) [![A dim 1980s home office at dusk with one CRT monitor glowing amber on the desk, cassette decks on the shelves, and a window showing a magenta sunset over a neon grid](https://arc.controlsquare.com/posts/free-signups-but-no-paying-customers/hero-v1.webp)Free AI signups but no paying customers? Test distribution first](https://controlsquare.com/transmissions/strategy/free-ai-signups-but-no-paying-customers/)