# pay2seed: The Client Protocol for Paid Seeding Status: 0.1 draft. Member of the [OpenSwarm](../openswarm.md) family. Depends on the [core](./spec.md), [`ipfile`](./ipfile.md), [`ippay`](./ippay.md) and [`ipdb`](./ipdb.md). Its server half is [`paid2seed`](./paid2seed.md). ## 1. Scope `pay2seed` is the side that pays. It is spoken over HTTPS by a requester, a person or a program that wants data kept alive on a swarm by machines they do not control, to a hub. It defines: - **Consent.** A signed attestation, made when the data is added, that the requester has the right to distribute it and accepts notice. A hub MUST NOT list an offer without one. This is the part BitTorrent never had. - **Offers.** A request to store, archive or share a swarm for a period, with a budget escrowed at the hub, a number of seeders wanted, and a proof cadence. Public offers cover vanilla torrents and `ipdb` feeds; private offers cover `ipfile` swarms whose ciphertext a seeder holds without ever reading. - **Encryption by default, and access.** A private swarm is `ipfile` ciphertext under a key the requester holds. Who else may decrypt it is a team: members the requester invites, and a keeper that issues grants to them when the requester is offline. This is what a hub charges for. Public is encryption switched off by an explicit act, and is listed and kept like anything else. - **The requester's view of the market**, of standing, and of notices. Everything on the BitTorrent side, how a seeder takes a lease, proves it holds and serves the pieces, and is paid, is [`paid2seed`](./paid2seed.md). The two documents share one hub, one set of record types, and one lifecycle; the split is who speaks which half. A hub implements both. A requester client implements only this one. A seeder client implements only the other. `ipfile.pin` ([c0mpute](./c0mpute.md) §3.1) is this document's offer carried on c0mpute's job auction; `paid2seed` §8 gives the mapping. ### Non-goals Judging content. A hub sees an attestation, an infohash and, for a private swarm, nothing else. It enforces that the attestation exists, is signed and is honoured on notice; whether it is true is the requester's liability, and §8 is how a false one is undone. Not a DRM. Not a token. Not a replacement for `ippay` vouchers: a swarm that charges leechers keeps charging them. ## 2. Terminology - **Requester.** The identity that posts an offer and funds it. Usually the publisher of the swarm; for a public torrent it may be anyone who wants it kept alive, subject to §3. A key, not necessarily a person: an autonomous agent is a requester like any other (§5.8). - **Seeder.** An identity that holds a lease and serves the swarm (`paid2seed`). - **Hub.** An `ippay` hub that also implements this document and `paid2seed`. bittorrented.com is the reference hub. - **Attestation.** The consent record (§3). **Offer.** The request (§4). - **Period.** The unit of accrual and proof, `proof.everyHours` long. - **Visibility.** `public` (a vanilla torrent or an `ipdb` feed) or `private` (an `ipfile` swarm; ciphertext only). Keys, records, signatures, amounts and times are as in the core. ## 3. Consent: the attestation An attestation is the requester saying, under signature, what the data is and why they may distribute it. It is made once per swarm, before the first offer, and every offer for that swarm references it. ### 3.1 Record ```json { "openswarm": "0.1", "type": "pay2seed.attestation", "subject": { "infohashV1": "4330ddb304b78b1398a77297f57ea22c1ef3fb56", "infohashV2": null, "file": null }, "visibility": "public", "basis": "own", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "description": "Field recordings, Dartmoor, 2026", "notice": "https://example.com/.well-known/pay2seed-notice", "acceptsTakedown": true, "createdAt": "2026-09-05T18:00:00.000Z", "sigs": [{ "alg": "ed25519", "key": "ed25519:0d87…", "sig": "…" }] } ``` | Field | Rule | | --- | --- | | `subject` | Exactly one of `file` (an `ipfile` file key; visibility MUST be `private`), `infohashV1`/`infohashV2` (at least one; visibility MUST be `public`), or `channel` (an `iplive` channel key; see `pay2stream` §3). A feed offer (§4.4) attests the feed key in `file`. | | `visibility` | `public` or `private`. Fixed for the life of the swarm. | | `basis` | Why the requester may distribute this. One of §3.2. | | `license` | REQUIRED when `basis` is `open-license`: an SPDX identifier. | | `description` | OPTIONAL, at most 280 characters, shown on public listings. | | `notice` | An HTTPS URL or `mailto:` at which the requester receives notices (§8). REQUIRED for `public`. | | `acceptsTakedown` | MUST be `true`. Present so the acceptance is in the signed bytes. | | `readme`, `readmeSha256` | REQUIRED. The swarm's `README.md` and the hash of the copy inside the swarm (§5.6). No README, no listing. | Signer: the requester key. For an `ipfile` subject the attestation MUST also carry a signature by the file's publisher key, which is how a stranger is prevented from attesting somebody else's private swarm. For a public infohash no such proof of authorship exists; §3.3 stands in for it. ### 3.2 Basis values | `basis` | Meaning | Allowed visibility | | --- | --- | --- | | `own` | The requester made it or holds the rights outright. | either | | `licensed` | The requester holds a licence that permits redistribution. | either | | `open-license` | Released under the SPDX licence in `license`. | either | | `public-domain` | No rights subsist, or they were waived. | either | | `personal` | The requester's own data, kept for themselves: backup, archive, sync. | `private` only | A hub MUST reject an attestation whose `basis` and `visibility` disagree with this table, and any with an unlisted `basis`. Hubs MAY refuse to list particular bases; the hub record says which (§6.1). ### 3.3 Public infohashes and the claim window Anyone can attest a public infohash, so the attestation is a claim. A hub lists a public offer only after a **claim window** (`claimHours` in the hub record, default 24) during which the infohash and the attestation are visible at `GET /offers/` and on the `pay2seed.offer.listed` event, and a notice voids it. An offer for a swarm that already has an honoured attestation from a different key is refused unless the new basis is `open-license` or `public-domain`, the two that do not depend on who is asking. A requester's standing (`paid2seed` §6.3) records every attestation of theirs that was voided. A hub SHOULD refuse new public attestations from a key whose voided count exceeds its accepted count, and MUST refuse them from a key with three or more voided in the last year. ## 4. Offers An offer is money on the table for a swarm to be kept for a period. It is bought from the hub as an `ippay` pass is, so the budget is settled before anyone starts seeding. ### 4.1 Record ```json { "openswarm": "0.1", "type": "pay2seed.offer", "hub": "ed25519:c9f1…", "requester": "ed25519:0d87…", "attestation": "sha256:8e1c…", "subject": { "infohashV1": "4330ddb304b78b1398a77297f57ea22c1ef3fb56", "infohashV2": null, "file": null, "feed": null }, "visibility": "public", "sizeBytes": 7462331904, "days": 30, "seeders": { "min": 3, "max": 10 }, "priceUsdPerGibMonth": "0.150000", "budgetUsd": "12.000000", "proof": { "everyHours": 6, "verifiers": ["hub"] }, "pass": null, "trackers": ["udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce", "wss://tracker.openwebtorrent.com"], "startsAt": "2026-09-05T18:00:00.000Z", "expiresAt": "2026-10-05T18:00:00.000Z", "payment": { "network": "eip155:8453", "nonce": "0x2f0a…" }, "createdAt": "2026-09-05T18:00:00.000Z", "sigs": [{ "alg": "ed25519", "key": "ed25519:c9f1…", "sig": "…" }] } ``` | Field | Rule | | --- | --- | | `hub` | The hub that sold it and holds the budget. Signer. | | `requester` | Who paid, bound at purchase as `ippay` §3.3 binds a payer. | | `attestation` | Record id of an attestation whose `subject` and `visibility` match. | | `subject` | As the attestation, plus OPTIONAL `feed`: an `ipdb` feed key (§4.4). | | `sizeBytes` | Ciphertext or payload size. For a feed, the size at posting. | | `days` | Period the swarm is to be held from `startsAt`. | | `seeders.min` | Leases before the offer is `active`; `max` caps them. | | `priceUsdPerGibMonth` | What one seeder earns for the whole swarm for 30 days, pro rata. | | `budgetUsd` | Escrowed. At least `max * priceUsdPerGibMonth * sizeBytes/2^30 * days/30`, rounded up. | | `proof.everyHours` | Period length, 1 to 168. | | `proof.verifiers` | `hub`, `requester`, or `c0mpute`. | | `pass` | For a `private` swarm whose `pricing.perGib` is non-zero: an `ippay.pass` scoped to the file so a seeder can fetch as a paying peer. | | `trackers` | Announce URLs the seeder MUST add. At least one `wss://` when browser peers should find it. | | `startsAt`, `expiresAt` | `expiresAt` is `startsAt + days`. Leases never outlive it. | | `payment.nonce` | The settlement that funded `budgetUsd`. | ### 4.2 Purchase `POST /offers` with an unsigned draft (every field but `hub`, `payment`, `sigs`, `createdAt`) and no `X-PAYMENT` header answers `402` with an x402 offer for `budgetUsd` plus the hub's fee (`paid2seed` §5.3), exactly as `ippay` §3.2 answers a pass purchase, with the same `X-OpenSwarm-Payer` binding. Repeating with a valid proof answers `201` with the signed offer. A hub MUST verify the referenced attestation before quoting, and MUST refuse a `private` offer whose `sizeBytes` disagrees with the manifest. An offer is `pending` until `seeders.min` leases exist, `active` from then until `expiresAt`, then `settled`. It is `voided` by a notice (§7) or by the requester (`DELETE /offers/`, signed), and the unearned budget is refunded to the requester's payout address less what leases have accrued. ### 4.3 Public swarms A `public` offer is a vanilla torrent. Nothing in the wire changes; the only new thing on the network is another well behaved seeder that stays. A podcast archive, a dataset, a software release, an out-of-print recording with a clean basis: kept alive by strangers who are paid for it. ### 4.4 Public feeds An offer whose `subject.feed` is set covers an `ipdb` feed: every segment swarm the feed publishes, present and future, and the duty to keep the feed's head reachable. What a leased seeder must do about it is `paid2seed` §7. `sizeBytes` is the feed's size at posting; each new segment joins the accrual base at the period it is proven, and the hub MUST NOT hand out leases whose projected accrual exceeds `budgetUsd`. The requester tops up with a further offer for the same feed. ### 4.5 Private swarms A `private` offer is an `ipfile` swarm. The seeder holds ciphertext and, without a grant, cannot read a byte of it. `personal` is the basis for a backup nobody else is ever meant to read; its `pricing` SHOULD be zero and its manifest SHOULD not be catalogued. Where the manifest has `keys.public` set the data is readable by anyone with the manifest and the offer is still `private` in this document's sense: the attestation says the requester may store it. ## 5. Encryption by default, and who may decrypt ### 5.1 The default A client adding data through `pay2seed` encrypts it. The default swarm is an `ipfile` swarm: AES-256-CTR over pieces under a content key the requester's publisher key derives and holds (`ipfile` §4). Nothing about the data, not its name, not its size to the byte, not a single block, is readable by a seeder, a tracker, the DHT, or the hub. `visibility` is `private`. The client encrypts. The hub never does, never holds a content key it was not delegated as keeper, and never sees plaintext; what it manages is access to keys, not the bytes. Encryption is a choice the requester makes off, not on. A requester who wants the world to have the data sets `visibility` to `public`: the swarm is a vanilla torrent and there is no content key. A public swarm is not a fallback and not a second class: it is attested, listed, kept by paid seeders and rendered on the hub exactly as a private one is. The only difference is that anyone who finds it, on the hub or on the DHT, can read it. A client MUST make the default private, MUST make turning it off an explicit act, and MUST say plainly what off means: anyone. ### 5.2 Access is the product What a private swarm needs, and what BitTorrent never had, is a way for the requester to say who else may decrypt it, and for that to keep working when the requester's laptop is closed. That is a **team**: a named set of member keys held at the hub, with a policy over which of the requester's swarms each member may receive a grant for. The hub, or a keeper it delegates to (`ipfile` §3.2 `delegate`, c0mpute's keeper role), issues the grant when a member asks. The requester never has to be online for a colleague to open a file, and never has to hand anyone the content key itself. Seeding is priced at the cost of disk. Teams are where a hub earns: seats, groups, an organisation with many groups, audit, and the guarantee that a grant is there at three in the morning. ### 5.3 Records ```json { "openswarm": "0.1", "type": "pay2seed.team", "hub": "ed25519:c9f1…", "owner": "ed25519:0d87…", "name": "field-recordings", "members": [ { "key": "ed25519:a1b2…", "box": "x25519:4c40…", "role": "admin", "since": "2026-09-06T10:00:00.000Z" }, { "key": "ed25519:c3d4…", "box": "x25519:9e11…", "role": "member", "since": "2026-09-06T10:05:00.000Z" } ], "scope": { "files": ["*"], "publishers": ["ed25519:0d87…"] }, "keeper": "ed25519:c9f1…", "createdAt": "2026-09-06T10:00:00.000Z", "sigs": [{ "alg": "ed25519", "key": "ed25519:0d87…", "sig": "…" }] } ``` | Field | Rule | | --- | --- | | `owner` | The requester key. Signer. Only the owner and `admin` members may change the record; every change is a new signed record and the hub keeps the history. | | `members[].key`, `box` | The member's signing key and the X25519 box key a grant is sealed to (core §4.4). | | `members[].role` | `admin` (may invite and remove), `member` (may receive grants), `readonly` (may receive grants for files the team marks so). | | `scope` | As a pass's scope (`ippay` §3.1): which file keys or publisher keys members may be granted. `["*"]` files under the owner's publisher key is the common case. | | `keeper` | Who issues grants: the hub's key, or a keeper the owner has delegated to. The owner's publisher key remains able to grant directly. | An **invitation** is `pay2seed.invite`: `{ "team", "to": , "role", "expiresAt" }`, signed by an admin. It travels out of band (the hub emails or messages it) and is redeemed with a key: the invitee's client mints one if they have none, and the hub adds the member. An invite to a key that already exists is added at once. An invitation MUST expire, 7 days by default. A **grant** to a member is an `ipfile.grant` (`ipfile` §3.2) with `delegate: true` and `pass: null`, sealed to the member's `box`, issued by the keeper. It is what an `ippay` pass buys for a stranger, handed instead to a member because the team says so. ### 5.4 Removal and rotation Removing a member ends future grants at once. It does not, and cannot, unread what they have already read; a grant they hold for a file still decrypts that file's current key epoch. A team with `rotateOnRemove: true` (the default) has the hub trigger `ip file reencrypt` on the files in scope (`ipfile` §11, a new content key and a new swarm), so the next version is closed to them. A client MUST show this distinction to the owner rather than imply removal is retroactive. ### 5.5 What the hub charges A hub prices teams as it likes and says so in its record: ```json "teams": { "freeMembers": 3, "seatUsdPerMonth": "2.000000", "orgUsdPerMonth": "50.000000", "keeperBps": 500 } ``` `freeMembers` seats per owner cost nothing, so a person sharing with their family or a three-person shop never pays for access. Above that a seat is billed monthly, an organisation (many teams, one bill, shared admins) at a flat rate, and `keeperBps` is the hub's share when it acts as keeper for a paid file (`ipfile` §7). All of it is settled through the same pay plugins the rest of the family uses, CoinPay and x402 over the owner's `ippay` payee, never a card form of the hub's own. Both sides earn. A seeder rents out disk through `paid2seed`. A requester sells access: to strangers through `ippay` passes at the swarm's `keyUsd` and `perGib`, to colleagues through a team. A hub takes its `hubBps` on payments that cross it, **1 percent at the reference hub** (`ippay` §5.1), plus its seat fees on teams, and nothing at all on the seeder's floor. Public swarms are not charged for; they carry an ad instead (§5.7). ### 5.6 The README Every swarm on the market MUST contain a `README.md` at its root. No exceptions: an attestation without one is refused, and a hub that lists a swarm without one is not conformant. The README is the swarm's face: what this is, who made it, what a buyer or a member gets, how to use it. The attestation carries it, so the hub can show it without a key: | Field | Rule | | --- | --- | | `readme` | The README's Markdown, UTF-8, at most 64 KiB. Signed with the rest of the attestation. | | `readmeSha256` | SHA-256 of the exact bytes of `README.md` inside the swarm. For a private swarm, of the plaintext; a member with a grant MAY verify it. | The hub renders `readme` as HTML on the swarm's page: CommonMark with GFM tables and fenced code, sanitised, no raw HTML, no scripts, images only from the swarm itself or over HTTPS. A relative link resolves to a file in the swarm and is gated the same way the file is: a public swarm's link downloads, a private swarm's link asks for a pass or a grant. That page, on bittorrented.com, is the listing; the DHT crawl's bare infohashes never had one, and this is what a consented swarm looks like beside them. ### 5.7 Public swarms pay for themselves Public distribution is free to the requester and free to the fetcher, and it is not charity. A public swarm has a page on the hub, built from the README (§5.6), and that page carries an advertisement. The hub earns from the page; the swarm's bytes are never metered, never gated and never counted. This is the trade, stated so nobody has to guess at it: | | Public | Private | | --- | --- | --- | | Bytes | free, over the ordinary wire and the DHT | `ipfile` ciphertext, `perGib` and `keyUsd` as the manifest says | | Who may read it | anyone | pass holders and team members | | What the hub earns | the ad on the swarm's page | its percentage of each payment, plus seats (§5.5) | | What the requester pays | nothing, unless they buy an offer to keep it alive | nothing, unless they buy an offer or seats | A requester who wants no advertisement on their page pays for a seat (§5.5); a hub MUST make that switch available rather than making the ad the price of being listed at all. An ad never appears inside a swarm, is never injected into a file, and never rides the wire: it is on the hub's page about the swarm and nowhere else. `ipdb` entries and the market API carry no advertising, so a client that reads the catalogue directly sees none of it. ### 5.8 An agent may be a requester Nothing in this family assumes a person. A requester is a key, and an autonomous agent holds keys as readily as anyone: it can attest what it made, publish a swarm, price access to it, sell tickets to a live channel, take payment through its own `ippay` payee, and spend what it earns buying offers so its own work stays online. The same is true on the other side: an agent with disk can hold leases and be paid for them (`paid2seed` §7). Two rules, and they are the same rules a person gets: - **The attestation is the agent's own claim**, signed by the agent's key, and its standing (§3.3) is the agent's. An agent that attests what it had no right to distribute loses standing exactly as a person does, and a hub applies §3.3's refusals without asking which kind of requester it is looking at. - **Consent does not become weaker because a machine gave it.** An agent publishing work made from somebody else's material has the same bases available and no others; `own` means the agent or its operator holds the rights, and there is no basis meaning "a model produced this, so nobody owns it". A hub MAY require an agent's attestations to name a responsible operator key alongside the agent's own, and the reference hub does for `public` swarms: an agent can sell freely, and somebody remains reachable when a notice arrives. ### 5.9 API | Method and path | Auth | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | `POST /teams` | owner signed | Create or replace a team record. | | `GET /teams/` | member signed | The record, its history, the files in scope. | | `POST /teams//invites` | admin signed | Issue an invitation; the hub delivers it. | | `POST /invites//accept` | invitee signed | Redeem with a key; returns the updated team. | | `DELETE /teams//members/` | admin signed | Remove; triggers rotation when the team says so. | | `GET /teams//grant?file=` | member signed | A sealed grant for a file in scope, from the keeper. `403` outside scope or after removal. | | `GET /teams//audit?since` | admin signed | Who was granted what, when. | ## 6. The requester's hub ### 6.1 Hub record An `ippay.hub` record that offers this family adds: ```json "pay2seed": { "base": "https://bittorrented.com/api/openswarm/pay2seed", "bases": ["own", "licensed", "open-license", "public-domain", "personal"], "claimHours": 24, "minStanding": 0, "verifiers": ["hub", "c0mpute"], "maxDays": 365 } ``` `bases` is what this hub will list. `minStanding` is the floor a seeder needs to take a lease (`paid2seed`). A hub MAY run a market for private backups only, or for open data only, by narrowing `bases`. ### 6.2 API, requester side All bodies JSON, records verified on receipt, paths relative to `base`. The seeder side of the same API is `paid2seed` §6.1. | Method and path | Auth | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | `POST /attestations` | signed record | Register. `201` with its id; `409` if one is honoured for the subject by another key (§3.3). | | `GET /attestations/` | none | The record and `{ "status": "claimed|honoured|voided", "notices": n }`. | | `POST /offers` | x402 + `X-OpenSwarm-Payer` | Buy an offer (§4.2). | | `GET /offers?visibility&basis&minPrice&maxSize&feed&status` | none | The market, newest first, paged. What a seeder client reads; what a requester watches. | | `GET /offers/` | none | The offer, its status, leases held, slots free, periods proven per lease. | | `DELETE /offers/` | requester signed | Void and refund the unearned budget. | | `GET /requesters/` | none | `{ "standing", "attestations", "voided", "offers" }`. | | `POST /notices` | signed | A notice against an attestation (§7). | | `POST /webhooks` | signed | Register a CloudEvents endpoint for a requester key. | ## 7. Requester client behaviour A requester client (the `ip seed` commands in [cli.md](./cli.md), a web app such as bittorrented.com's upload form) does the following: 1. Holds a requester key, stored as an OpenCreds `key` item, registered as an `ippay` payee so refunds have somewhere to go. 2. Makes the attestation before anything else, and MUST NOT let a user post an offer without choosing a `basis` and, for `public`, a `notice` endpoint. The basis list is a choice, never a default. 2b. Encrypts by default (§5.1). Turning encryption off is an explicit act with its consequence stated. Shares a private swarm by inviting members to a team (§5.3), never by handing out a content key. 3. Buys offers only against attestations the key actually signed. 4. Includes a pass in a `private` offer when the manifest charges per GiB. 5. Watches `GET /offers/` or the events for `active`, `lapsed` leases and `settled`, and shows the user seeders held out of wanted, periods proven, and spend against the budget. 6. Receives notices at the endpoint it named, and shows them. ## 8. Notices and takedown Anyone may `POST /notices` against an attestation: ```json { "openswarm": "0.1", "type": "pay2seed.notice", "attestation": "sha256:8e1c…", "kind": "rights|illegal|personal-data|other", "claimant": { "name": "…", "contact": "mailto:…" }, "statement": "…", "createdAt": "2026-09-06T09:00:00.000Z", "sigs": [{ "alg": "ed25519", "key": "ed25519:77aa…", "sig": "…" }] } ``` On a notice the hub MUST forward it to the requester's `notice` endpoint and MUST, within `claimHours`, either void the attestation or record that it was reviewed and stands. Voiding an attestation voids every offer that references it: leases end (`paid2seed` §3.2), the requester is refunded the unearned budget less accrued earnings, and their `voided` count rises. A hub that voids on every notice without review is conformant; a hub that never voids is not. For a `private` swarm the hub cannot inspect the content and does not pretend to. What it has is the requester's identity, attestation and standing, which is what accountability looks like for ciphertext. ## 9. Security notes - **Attestation is a claim.** §3.3's window, standing and notices are the defence. A hub that lists a public offer the moment it is paid is not conformant. - **Hub as escrow.** The budget sits with the hub for `days`, as a pass buyer's `capUsd` does for 30. The hub's signed receipts and refunds are its auditable trail. - **Private means ciphertext, not secret existence.** An offer reveals to its seeders the file key, the size and the requester's key. `personal` swarms SHOULD use a fresh unrelated file pair (core §4.2) so backups are not linkable to a publisher's catalogue. ## 10. Implementations | Piece | Where | Status | | --- | --- | --- | | Reference hub, requester side: attestations, offers, market, notices | `profullstack/media-streamer` (bittorrented.com) | planned; the seedbox rental rail is the pay-per-pass half today | | Requester client and shared records | `@profullstack/pay2seed` | planned | | Requester CLI | `ip seed …` ([cli.md](./cli.md)) | proposed | ## 11. Conformance A **hub** is conformant on this side when it refuses offers without an honoured attestation (§3), enforces the basis table and claim window (§3.2, §3.3), escrows the budget before listing (§4.2), publishes the market and requester standing (§5.2), and forwards and resolves notices within `claimHours` (§7). It MUST also be conformant to `paid2seed`. A **requester client** is conformant when it does all of §6. ## 12. Version history - 0.1 (2026-09-06): split out of the first pay2seed draft (2026-09-05) as the client half; attestation, offers, requester API, notices. Same day: encryption by default, teams, invitations, member grants, rotation on removal, and the hub's pricing for access. Then: the 1 percent reference fee, the advertisement that pays for public swarms, and agents as requesters.