What a receipt proves (and what it doesn't)

When a host finishes a job it writes a receipt and signs it with a key generated on its own machine — a key that never leaves it. The receipt records the model, the exact build, the token counts and the timing.

Verify one yourself

$ mahout receipts verify
  br_2c13a431c1d40d88  qwen3.8-27b  96 tokens  signature ok

That runs offline, against the public key in your own identity file. Nothing about it depends on trusting us: the maths either checks out or it does not.

What it proves

• This machine claims this work. The signature binds the token counts to a specific host key, so earnings cannot be attributed to the wrong machine.
• The numbers were not edited afterwards. Not by the host, and not by us. A receipt that has been touched fails verification.
• Which build served it. The receipt carries the SHA-256 of the exact model file, so "which quantization answered me" has an answer.
• Your earnings are derived, not declared. The ledger is folded from receipts; if the two ever disagreed, the receipts are the evidence.

What it does not prove

A signature says this host reported this. It does not, on its own, prove the model actually ran — a dishonest host could sign plausible numbers for work it never did. That is a real limit and we would rather name it than let a cryptographic word do work it cannot.

What closes that gap is verification of the output itself: sampled replication against known-good machines, and activation commitments (the TOPLOC construction) where the engine proves it computed what it says it computed. Both are designed; replication is the near-term step. Until then, receipts plus reputation are what stands between the pool and a bad actor, and the payout policy reflects that.

Why bother, then

Because the alternative — "trust our dashboard" — is what every other marketplace offers, and it gives a host no way to check anything. A receipt you can verify offline turns a monthly number into a claim you can audit line by line. It also means a mistake on our side is discoverable rather than invisible, which is a discipline we want to be under.