These are reward programmes, not payment systems. You earn tokens by spending yuan, and spend them with one model provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phone plans, dumplings and resale<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Banks that lend against token use<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A token stopped being a cost of goods. It became something a balance sheet can be measured against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In America, the same idea arrived as a perk<\/h2>\n\n\n\nA fourth line in the job offer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tomasz Tunguz calls inference a fourth part<\/a> of engineering pay, after salary, bonus and equity. He puts $100,000 of inference on a $375,000 salary, over 20% of the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the same object is a reward, a budget and a perk. No wonder people reach for the word currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But why does it feel like money at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Money is a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. Score tokens against each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the objection that settles it, and it has nothing to do with crypto. A study of 25 European languages<\/a> found that the same text costs 1.23 tokens per word in English and about 3.1 in Greek and Maltese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Token rewards are the polite version. Voluntary, marketed as perks, on a screen instead of a paper note. The mechanics are the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So why is it legal? Because it arrives as a perk, not a wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US rules don’t authorise wages in scrip<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If tokens were becoming money, the new financial products would be about tokens. They aren’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kalshi launched compute forward curves<\/a> in July 2026, showing the implied price of renting B200, H200 and A100 chips. ICE and Ornn announced futures<\/a> on a transaction-based index, in dollars and cash-settled, pending approval. CME announced two contracts<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The token is the retail packaging. Compute is what’s being priced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expiry, model version, transfer rights, refunds if a model retires. Four plain clauses would remove most of the risk from a credit purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCredits became the default price tag<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Tokens fail the three jobs money has to do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A medium of exchange that stops at the door<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A unit of account that changes with the language<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A store of value that expires<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What tokens resemble is company scrip<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Closed loop, issuer-priced, non-transferable<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/arc.controlsquare.com\/posts\/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency\/body-v2.webp\")
America outlawed it as pay in 1938<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The market that formed is for compute, not tokens<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Forward curves for GPU rent<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/arc.controlsquare.com\/posts\/ai-tokens-are-becoming-a-currency\/body-v1.webp\")
The commodity, not the money<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What is missing, and what would have to be true<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A unit of work, not a unit of tokens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A clearing house for unused credits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A standard clause set for credits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What to do this quarter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you buy AI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
If you sell AI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
If you’re paid in it<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The pricing problem comes first<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A token nobody can price is a positioning problem<\/h3>\n\n\n\n