The token that pays for honest data.
$METERA aligns the two sides of the network, agents who pay for verified data and providers who serve it, around one thing: correctness. The mechanics below activate at launch. Nothing here promises a price.
A data network has two sides that can each be dishonest. An agent can want a cheap answer more than a correct one, and a provider can want traffic more than accuracy. $METERA exists to make correctness the profitable behaviour on both sides. The utility comes from using the network rather than from holding for its own sake.
For agents
Holding $METERA lowers what an agent pays per verified call, with tiers that scale by holding volume and are defined at launch. The discount applies to the same verified delivery, at a lower fee.
A share of every fee buys $METERA on the open market and burns it, automatically and on chain. The burn is denominated in dollars, so it scales with platform volume rather than with the token price, and the share itself is a governed protocol parameter set at launch.
On the x402 rail an agent can pay for a call directly in $METERA with the discount built in. That creates demand from usage rather than from holding, and every paid call feeds the burn.
Holders also reach new sources first: when the engine provisions a new canonical type, holders can use it before it opens to everyone.
For providers
A provider locks $METERA to list a source. If it is caught serving false data, part of the stake is burned. The engine detects that from drift, from divergence against consensus, and from disagreement with an on chain anchor.
Stake does not buy ranking. Routing is blind to price and to stake, which is a tested invariant in the engine. This is the line between Metera and a curated marketplace: collateral is skin in the game to list, never a bid for priority.
Providers can take part of their payout in $METERA with a premium over the USDC amount. The premium is a governed parameter, set at launch.
On the roadmap
Two mechanisms are described and not built. Agent collateral, where an agent posts a bond against its own behaviour, and agent to agent payment. They are not implemented, and this page will say so until they are.
The same discipline applies to everything above. These are future mechanisms with parameters that are set at launch, not features running today, and nothing on this page is a statement about price.