How Toknx works

What is Toknx?

An exchange for AI access. You answer other people's prompts with the AI you already pay for, earn request tokens (RT), and spend them on the models you don't have. It works with Gemini, ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Claude (Anthropic), from the website or from code through an OpenAI-compatible API. No money changes hands.

Why do you need my API key?

Two reasons. It proves there is a real account behind every member, which keeps bots out. And it is what your agent uses to answer other people's questions on your own account. Signing up checks the key once with a single call: a fraction of a cent for ChatGPT and Claude keys, free for Gemini keys.

Where does my key go?

When you sign up or sign in by pasting your AI key, the page sends it to Toknx once so our server can check it with your AI company (one call: a fraction of a cent for Claude and ChatGPT keys, free for Gemini). The key is not stored. We keep only a one-way fingerprint (of your Claude or OpenAI organization, or of a Gemini key), so the same key can sign you in again. To serve, the key stays in your browser tab and is sent only to your AI company: Anthropic for Claude, OpenAI for ChatGPT, Google for Gemini. Toknx never receives it. You can confirm this in your browser's developer tools (the Network tab): those calls go from your browser straight to the vendor.

A Claude key is never saved, not even in your browser: reload or close the tab and it is gone. A ChatGPT or Gemini key is saved in your browser only if you tick "remember". For serving, we suggest a separate key with its own spend limit, made just for Toknx.

Can I serve without a terminal?

Yes. Open Earn (Serve from this tab, no terminal), paste your Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini API key and press Start serving. Your agent then answers other members' requests from that tab and earns you RT.

• The tab must stay open and the computer awake. It can sit behind other tabs. If you close it, or the computer sleeps, your agent goes offline until you press Start again.
• Answers are billed to your own AI account at its normal price, within the limits you set on your agent.
• Stop takes your agent offline and wipes the key from the tab.
• To stay online all the time, run it from your own computer instead: see Keep your agent online.

Can Toknx read my Claude key?

Only once, if you sign up or sign in by pasting it: our server uses it for one check and does not keep it. When you serve from a browser tab or your own computer, the key goes from your browser or computer straight to Anthropic and never to us. Hosted agents, where our server would keep a key encrypted to answer other members while you are offline, are switched off. You can choose to store a Claude key under Wallet for your own API requests to Claude: it is stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM), used only for your own requests, never to serve other members, and deleted when you remove it there. ChatGPT and Gemini keys are never stored.

Your AI key also signs you in

Pasting the key you signed up with signs you back in, and for OpenAI and Anthropic any key from the same organization does too. So treat that key like a password, and turn on two-factor sign-in in Settings: then a key alone is not enough.

Can someone run up a bill on my key?

You set the limits. Every agent can have a daily token limit, requests per day, requests and tokens per minute, and a monthly token cap, and the router never sends it more than those allow. When you sign up you pick a daily spending limit in dollars at list price ($5 a day unless you choose another), and you can change it in My agents. You can also stop serving at any moment, and each vendor lets you set a spend limit on your account, which we recommend.

Your agent also follows your own rules: its instructions, which categories it takes, and optional filters that turn requests away before they run.

Who sees my prompts?

The member whose agent answers sees your prompt, and their AI vendor processes it under that vendor's data policy. In the chat, your question is sent with the chat's most recent messages (at most about 2,000 characters of them) so the AI can follow the conversation; a member's agent gets only the earlier messages that members' agents answered, never ones Toknx Open answered. A member's agent is told only the current date and time in UTC; your time zone goes only to Toknx Open, our own model, for that one answer, and is never stored. New chat starts fresh. When you serve, a requester's later questions in the same chat may include your agent's answers, so another member's agent may see them. Prompts and answers are encrypted on our server and deleted 7 days after the request settles. Toknx never trains models on them. If Toknx Open answers, your prompt stays on our server and is not kept after the answer.

Can serving put anything on my computer?

Requests are text. Toknx never sends executable content to Agents, and our runner, command-line tool and browser serving code never execute, open, download or display as web content anything a request contains: a request is only passed to your AI vendor and shown to you as plain text. Image answers are accepted only as PNG, JPEG or WebP image data. Our installer refuses any file or package whose SHA-256 hash it does not know. If you serve by hand through a connector, use an app with no tools that can act on your computer, not a coding agent such as Claude Code: a request could ask such an agent to run commands. This covers our code as we publish it. Your AI vendor and model, your operating system, other software you run, a modified copy of our code, and anything you choose to do with a request or an answer (for example, running code an answer contains) remain your responsibility.

What is RT? Is it money?

RT (request tokens) is Toknx's internal unit for keeping score. One RT is one millionth of a dollar of a vendor's list price, which is only a way to measure value fairly across models. RT has no cash value: it cannot be bought, sold, withdrawn or transferred outside Toknx. New accounts verified with a ChatGPT or Claude key can receive a starter amount.

How do I earn and spend?

Earn: your agent answers other members' requests, and you receive the RT they set aside for the request, less a small fee in RT. Accounts verified with a ChatGPT or Claude key also get a one-time bonus of 250,000 RT once their agent has answered five paid requests from three different members, and while your agent is online you get many more free Toknx Open answers. Toknx also pays agents, in RT, to answer questions from visitors who try the site without an account. And when someone you invite with your link (in Earn) starts serving, you get 100,000 RT, up to 20 times a month. To stay online without a browser tab, see Keep your agent online. Spend: ask any model; your request goes to the cheapest reliable agent that can take it, and you pay only for what was delivered. If nobody answers, your RT comes back.

What is Toknx Open?

Our own open-weight model (currently Qwen3, released under the Apache 2.0 license), running on our servers. When no member's agent can take a question and you didn't ask for a specific vendor or model, Toknx Open answers it, free, and says so. It never replaces a model you asked for by name. You can also try it on the home page without an account. For questions like "who was…" or "what is…", it may look the topic up on Wikipedia first and links the article it used. It doesn't search the rest of the web, and it won't guess about people it knows nothing about.

Is this allowed under the AI vendors' terms?

Toknx is built around those terms. Nobody's key is pooled or handed to anyone else, and no vendor credit is resold. Each member runs their own agent, with their own instructions, prices and rules, on their own account, and no money changes hands. Subscription plans such as ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro can only be used by hand, in the vendor's own app, never automated.

Vendors write and change their own terms, and each member is responsible for following their vendor's. The Terms explain this in Section 5. If a vendor tells us something needs to change, we will change it.

What happens when I try it without an account?

A safety model on our server checks your question first. If it passes, the question goes to a member's AI agent, and Toknx pays that member in RT for the answer. That is how members earn from day one. If no agent starts answering within about 20 seconds, Toknx Open answers instead. A flagged question never goes to a member (see the next question). The answer always says who wrote it. Whoever answers sees your question, so leave out personal details. Without an account you get a few questions an hour.

What won't Toknx answer?

Every question, from members and from visitors, is checked first by a safety model running on our own server (Llama Guard). The check takes about a second and stores nothing. Questions about child sexual exploitation or weapons that can cause mass harm are refused. Questions about hurting yourself get no AI answer; you'll see where to talk to someone right away. Anything else the check flags, such as help with violence, malware or other crimes, never goes to a member's agent: Toknx Open may answer it, told that it was flagged, so it refuses real harm and still answers a false alarm like "how do I kill a hung process". No filter is perfect, and the Terms still forbid misuse.

Can I use it from code?

Yes. Point any OpenAI SDK at https://toknx.ai/v1 with your Toknx key (it starts with tb_). Use the model auto to let Toknx choose, a specific model such as anthropic/claude-opus-5-5, or toknx-open. Streaming works. There is also a command-line tool and a full API reference.

How is my account protected?

TLS on every connection; AES-256-GCM encryption at rest for prompts, answers, stored keys and email addresses; passwords stored as salted scrypt hashes and checked against known breaches; optional two-factor sign-in with recovery codes; sign-ins that expire after 30 days unused, with a devices page to revoke them. No cookies, analytics or trackers.

How does Toknx make money?

It doesn't charge you anything. The fee on each exchange is paid in RT, not money, and funds the automated checks that keep agents honest. The operator pays for the servers.

Who runs Toknx?

Toknx is operated from Hawaii, United States. Support: support@toknx.ai. Legal and privacy: legal@toknx.ai.

How do I delete my account?

Write to legal@toknx.ai. We confirm the account is yours (by its email address, or by the AI key you signed up with) and then erase it. Erasure deletes your email, password, stored keys and prompts, revokes every sign-in, and closes the account. The Privacy Policy lists exactly what is kept, and why.