ADR-055: Money and the inventory — primary sales first, trading later, never paid chance

Status: Proposed 2026-10-09 (plan track T21, step 6), for the owner's decision. It would amend ADR-054 §5 (the money boundary) within ADR-012 (economic classification) and ADR-025 (no trading between people without a new ADR). Nothing here is built until the owner accepts it and the open questions at the end are answered.

Context

• The inventory (ADR-054) is live and free. Items are granted for what people do: OpenVibe.Quest rewards (§3 grantors), staff grants, and creators giving their Workshop badges (§6).
• The owner wants a Steam-like economy: creators earn from what they make, people trade and a market prices items.
• Three ADR-012 rules decide what is possible:
• Rule 3: CREDIT (Vibes bought with money) becomes MONEY only by being given to someone, such as a creator.
• Rule 5: LOYALTY (OpenCoins, channel points) is never bought, never converted and never moved between people.
• Rule 6: cosmetics are not tradable, and a paid cosmetic is an ENTITLEMENT bought through Billing.
• Billing is the only ledger (ADR-012 rule 1). Its cutover from Live waits on O1, the PowerChat webhook re-point.

Decision (proposed)

The money arrives in three phases. Each starts only when the previous one has run cleanly and the owner says so.

Phase A — primary sales (fits ADR-012 as written)

• Who sells: an item's issuer may put a price on a published definition: a Workshop creator on their badge, or Live on its cosmetics. The price is in Vibes or in OpenCoins, never both, and the issuer chooses.
• Vibes: the buyer spends CREDIT, and Billing books the sale as an ENTITLEMENT.
• A creator's share goes to creator_payable:<subject> (MONEY, ADR-012 rule 3); the platform keeps the rest.
• Proposed split: 80% creator and 20% platform, the same as Tips.
• Inventory grants the instance with origin bought only after Billing confirms the purchase, keyed by the Billing intent id.
• A refund or chargeback revokes that instance. Self-purchase (a creator buying their own item) is refused by subject.
• OpenCoins: the buyer spends LOYALTY on Network's wallet. Nobody is paid, and the instance's origin is redeemed. This is a shop, not a conversion: rule 5 holds, because OpenCoins never become money or move to another person.
• Limits and honesty:
• The supply cap stays the issuer's; a sold-out item stays sold out.
• Prices are shown before checkout.
• A purchase limit per person per day applies (proposed: 20).
• Rarity is still a label, never odds.
• Contracts: inventory/definition@1 gains price ({ currency: vibes|opencoins, amount }); instance origins gain bought and redeemed; Billing gains an inventory purchase intent; events gain inventory.item.bought.

Phase B — gifting between people (needs an ADR-012 rule 6 amendment)

• A person may give an item they own to another person, for nothing in return, if the issuer marked it giftable.
• A gifted item cannot be gifted again for 7 days.
• No value moves, so this stays outside MONEY, CREDIT and LOYALTY. It does change "cosmetics are not tradable", so rule 6 is amended to: "cosmetics are not sold between people; an issuer may let its items be gifted".

Phase C — trading and a market (stays closed)

• Swaps between people, listings, escrow, a market price and cash value for items stay closed under ADR-025.
• Opening them needs its own ADR after legal review: virtual-item marketplaces and money transmission per country, KYC for sellers, VAT, disputes, fraud, wash trading and minors.
• This ADR does not open them.

Never

• No paid chance. No cases, crates, loot boxes, keys, gacha or random rewards bought with Vibes or OpenCoins, in any phase, in any country. Free drops with published odds stay allowed.
• No item is ever converted into Vibes, OpenCoins or money by the platform, and no "sell back to OpenVibe".

Alternatives considered

• Open trading and a market at once, Steam-style: rejected for now. It brings money movement between people, escrow, disputes and regulatory exposure (ADR-025) before there is an owner, a review process or legal advice.
• Sales in OpenCoins only: creators would earn nothing real, which is the owner's point of the Workshop.
• Sales in Vibes only: this would leave out the network-wide earn-and-spend loop that OpenCoins exist for.
• Paid random rewards with odds published: rejected outright. It is a regulated or banned practice in several countries and contrary to the network's honesty rule.

Consequences

• Phase A gives creators income and Live a cosmetics shop again (priced in OpenCoins or Vibes) without new money-transmission exposure. All money stays in Billing's journal.
• Inventory stays a non-financial service: it records origins and listens for Billing's confirmations, and holds no balance.

Open questions for the owner

1. Accept phase A? Is the creator/platform split 80/20?
2. Should Live's own cosmetics be sold, and in which currency (OpenCoins, Vibes, or each per item)?
3. Minimum age for buying with Vibes: Network has no age data today. Does Phase A need an age attestation at checkout?
4. Phase B (gifting): accept the rule 6 amendment?
5. Does phase A wait for the Billing cutover (O1), as this ADR assumes, so that Vibes purchases land in Billing's ledger rather than Live's?

Acceptance tests (when built)

• A Vibes purchase grants exactly one bought instance per Billing intent; a replay grants nothing; a refund revokes.
• A creator's share lands in creator_payable; self-purchase is refused.
• An OpenCoins purchase debits Network's wallet once and grants a redeemed instance. No route converts an item, Vibes or OpenCoins into money.
• A route-inventory test fails on any endpoint that sells a random reward, lists an item between people, or holds escrow (phase C stays closed).