The Create-to-Earn Economy

How the protocol gives STX and sBTC two different jobs - gifted STX to create, earned sBTC to collect - and the seeder that makes a newcomer's first sBTC arrive as income.

The Payment Currency Policy decides which currency a payment settles in. This page is about the jobs the two currencies do during onboarding: STX is the gifted currency a user spends to create; sBTC is the scarce currency they earn by being collected and spend to collect. The creator-facing version of the same model is How Earning Works.

Two currencies, two roles

	STX	sBTC
Role	gifted energy - gas plus creating	earned value - collecting
How you get it	invite gift or gas float (abundant)	earning, or protocol seeding (scarce)
What it settles	the create / deploy fee	the collect / mint fee
Named to users as	"STX"	"sats" and "balance"

The role split is the load-bearing decision; everything else follows from it. It also sits deliberately alongside the currency policy: sBTC is the primary settlement currency and STX is on a path out as a way to pay for collects - but STX keeps a first-class job here as the gifted currency that funds creating and gas. "STX is declining" and "STX funds creating" are not in tension - they are different jobs for the same asset.

STX-payable create

The create / deploy fee can settle in STX. Since SDK 0.14.54 the deploy path threads a CurrencyCode through both the custodial and BYOW routes, so a client can charge its create fee in STX. The STX a newcomer arrives with therefore covers the fee and the gas underneath it - one asset, one number, and the barrier to contribute drops to about zero. Bottle Drop is the worked example: its drop fee is a small charge in STX.

The first-create seeder (protocol as first buyer)

The cold-start problem: to collect you spend sBTC; to earn sBTC someone has to collect your work; the very first user has no one. Handing out free sBTC would answer it but would also make sBTC feel free - the opposite of the goal. So the protocol becomes the first buyer instead.

When a newcomer's first product deploy confirms on chain, the protocol collects an edition of it as owner - a genuine mint at the sBTC edition price, not a gift. The contract splits that payment to the creator and any other contributors exactly as a real collector's payment would. The newcomer's first sBTC arrives as income.

Newcomer deploys first product

create fee in STX

Deploy confirms

observed on chain

Protocol collects an edition

protocol is the owner

Creator earns sBTC

the ordinary revenue split

The seed only fires when every gate holds:

seeding enabled       off by default, enabled per environment
feedback capability   the product composes `feedback`
first create only     once per person, ever
invited newcomer      a claimed invite in the user's tree      (Sybil-bounded)
funded float          the protocol has sBTC to spend

The seed fires exactly once per person. Tying it to a claimed Invite bounds it to the invite tree - you cannot farm seeds without burning invites.

The faucet gate

An open sBTC faucet would undo the scarcity the seeder depends on, so there is not an open one. The protocol's one faucet surface lives on the hub, and each of its two taps renders only for the currency that has run out: STX below a 50 STX floor, sBTC below a 500-sat floor. One tap clears the floor and the offer withdraws. It is an emergency exit, not a dispenser - sBTC is meant to arrive by being collected, or by the protocol's first-buyer collect, and a stranded balance is the only case the tap exists for.

Calibration

Round numbers, biased toward movement. Tune from telemetry.

Lever	Value	Why
Starter STX (funded invite)	25 STX	the ladder's create rungs take six deploys (a bottle, two more, two letters, a page) at about 2.6 STX all-in each, about 15.6 STX, so the grant covers the climb with STX to spare; the two game rungs are seats priced in sats, plus gas; the hub tap covers a stranded balance
Create / drop fee	2 STX	small, and well under the starter grant
Seed fee (what the protocol pays)	2000 sats	see below
Collect / note fee	500 sats	the everyday collect price

The seed nets the creator roughly 80% after a 20% template-artist royalty, about 1600 sats - some three collect-fees. So a newcomer's first creation earns enough to afford several collects, and the loop closes on turn one with margin. Nothing here is more than a few dollars.