pay-per-crawl protocol

For Publishers & Creators

Monetize AI Traffic: Currently 73% of publishers are blocking AI crawlers. Instead of blocking bots outright, you can charge per request. Every time an autonomous agent accesses your content, you earn USDC instantly with zero friction.

Enforce Your Terms: Tachi lets you define pricing and usage terms for your content. Only crawlers that agree get access – others are politely turned away with a 402 Payment Required. You maintain full control and can update rates or rules anytime. Terms of service can even be presented to crawlers as part of the payment requirement flow.

For AI Developers

On-Demand Access: No more anti-bot measures or legal uncertainties about scraping. If you need data, you can get it instantly by paying the small fee the publisher has set. Every request's price is transparent upfront, so you know exactly what each crawl will cost.

Audit Trail: Every access is recorded on-chain, creating an immutable log of what data was retrieved, when, and by whom. This audit trail means you can prove exactly which content you've accessed and paid for.

Simple SDK, Low Latency: You can integrate Tachi in minutes using simple SDKs. Built as a serverless edge gateway, Tachi adds negligible latency to your requests. In practice, an autonomous agent can pay and get the content as fast as a normal request.

How It Works

1. Publisher Setup: A website owner installs the Tachi gateway with a few oboarding clicks. They configure their pricing and usage terms, then mint a crawl license on-chain for their domain.

2. Crawler Integration: An AI developer registers their crawler through the Tachi API and obtains credentials. The developer simply replaces direct HTTP requests with SDK calls.

3. Payment Handshake: When the crawler requests a page, it checks the crawl license to get the price and terms. If payment is required, the gateway sends a USDC quote and address, then verifies the on-chain payment and unlocks the content.

4. On-Chain Logging: Every completed crawl triggers an on-chain log entry including crawler ID, publisher, content ID, and timestamp. This provides both parties a verifiable record of rich data.

Dashboard

Once you're on board, Tachi's dashboard puts creators and developers in control with live data and rich insights. Examples include:

Revenue at a Glance: See your earnings accrue in real time.

Live Crawl Feed: Monitor AI activity on your content as it happens. A feed lists recent crawl requests including which agent accessed which URL, when, and how much was paid.

Network Health & Control: Manage multiple websites and gateways in one place like adjusting pricing or pause protection for maintenance.

Why Blockchain

The web's current value layer is encumbered by T+2 settlement and 2.9% + $0.30 fees—great for shopping carts but not for bots paying per page. Layer 2 blockchains make frictionless, sub-cent payments viable—a $0.000083 transfer fee arriving instantly makes access an actual commodity anywhere in the world.

Smart contracts turn "terms + price" into dynamically capable code-enforced rules: quote price, receive payment, settle to the publisher, log proof-of-crawl—automatically. No bespoke licensing cycles, no manual invoicing.

Every paid access emits on audit trail for reporting and analytics that you control. This is built for permissioned machine interaction with content at scale.