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Tokens are just a type of currency. Stripe is a middleman for currency. Using something like OpenRouter (or any of the AI Gateways) is better than tying yourse

Tokens are just a type of currency. Stripe is a middleman for currency. Using something like OpenRouter (or any of the AI Gateways) is better than tying yourself to one LLM provider that can rug pull on pricing or change models in a way you don't like. The value is in the network effect I think. OpenRouter is popular and has a good head start over anything Stripe could build internally.

dgellow 28d ago
Tokens are not a currency, tokens aren’t fungible and cannot be traded
- topato 28d ago
  Isn’t this what Venice.AI is essentially trying to do?
- victorbjorklund 28d ago
  A dollar bill and a euro coin isn’t fungible either.
  - osculum 28d ago
    ? In general, it is, unless it has some collector value, for example.
    - victorbjorklund 27d ago
      No it is not. Can they be used to solve similar issues? Sure. But value isn’t the same and they are not identical. Just like a token.
- 13hours 28d ago
  Yet
  - dgellow 28d ago
    Tokens are minted then consumed. You cannot trade them, by definition. What would it even mean to trade a token? You can maybe trade a voucher that allows you to then redeem it for some token generation (aka compute), but the tokens themselves don’t make sense to be tradeable. And because they aren’t fungible you cannot swap a token for another one, that’s just not what LLMs are
    - pests 28d ago
      I think you are reading too much into the "fungible" term. No one is talking about trading tokens. The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You can change one value in a request to openrouter and suddenly be hitting a different provider but offering the same tokens, because they offer the same model and the same settings.
      - adwn 28d ago
        > The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You're describing a commodity. However, the commodity isn't the tokens, but the compute capacity, i.e., serving a model. And compute capacity isn't a currency — at least not, until you can acquire compute capacity from one party and exchange it with another party. dgellow is absolutely right: tokens aren't a currency, nor can you trade them, nor are they fungible. The original claim that "tokens are just a type of currency" [1] makes no sense. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364984
- polotics 28d ago
  to a certain extent, openrouter did manage to turn tokens into a currency. The fungibility is there, as much as you don't care so much if you're getting your token from novita or some other player, these become fungible.
  - dgellow 28d ago
    They aren’t trading tokens, they are a market for compute. The difference matters quite a lot. What you have in openrouter is the ability to exchange money for compute at the vendor of your choice. We are basically back to 2020 trying to get people to understand that an NFT is NOT the underlying asset it abstractly represents…
    - pests 28d ago
      > The difference matters quite a lot. Please go on as I do not get your point.
      - dgellow 28d ago
        You spend $100 to get tokens from Claude. Then go to your friend and tell them you are willing to sell the tokens you got for $50, it’s a bargain! They look at you, tell you that makes absolutely no sense, and why the fuck would they want to buy your tokens, ie something that only makes sense in your very specific prompting context. Tokens don’t have an inherent value and have no other properties that would make they tradeable. Another way to think about it: a company that spends $1M on tokens is burning that money hoping they will be able to recoup by generating a better product. If it would be tradeable, they could spend $1M to generate tokens, produce absolutely no product, and just resell all those tokens to get their money back. That’s obviously nonsense, that’s not at all what tokens are. And they cannot transform the tokens they got into compute, you need to consume hardware and energy to mint tokens, you cannot convert tokens into hardware
Taikhoom10 28d ago
Yeah, I mean, it looks like a network effect, but anybody can aggregate the models; rather, it is the switching costs in the logs and work, and the cost savings, etc.

dgellow 28d ago

Tokens are not a currency, tokens aren’t fungible and cannot be traded

topato 28d ago
Isn’t this what Venice.AI is essentially trying to do?
victorbjorklund 28d ago
A dollar bill and a euro coin isn’t fungible either.
- osculum 28d ago
  ? In general, it is, unless it has some collector value, for example.
  - victorbjorklund 27d ago
    No it is not. Can they be used to solve similar issues? Sure. But value isn’t the same and they are not identical. Just like a token.
13hours 28d ago
Yet
- dgellow 28d ago
  Tokens are minted then consumed. You cannot trade them, by definition. What would it even mean to trade a token? You can maybe trade a voucher that allows you to then redeem it for some token generation (aka compute), but the tokens themselves don’t make sense to be tradeable. And because they aren’t fungible you cannot swap a token for another one, that’s just not what LLMs are
  - pests 28d ago
    I think you are reading too much into the "fungible" term. No one is talking about trading tokens. The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You can change one value in a request to openrouter and suddenly be hitting a different provider but offering the same tokens, because they offer the same model and the same settings.
    - adwn 28d ago
      > The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You're describing a commodity. However, the commodity isn't the tokens, but the compute capacity, i.e., serving a model. And compute capacity isn't a currency — at least not, until you can acquire compute capacity from one party and exchange it with another party. dgellow is absolutely right: tokens aren't a currency, nor can you trade them, nor are they fungible. The original claim that "tokens are just a type of currency" [1] makes no sense. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364984
polotics 28d ago
to a certain extent, openrouter did manage to turn tokens into a currency. The fungibility is there, as much as you don't care so much if you're getting your token from novita or some other player, these become fungible.
- dgellow 28d ago
  They aren’t trading tokens, they are a market for compute. The difference matters quite a lot. What you have in openrouter is the ability to exchange money for compute at the vendor of your choice. We are basically back to 2020 trying to get people to understand that an NFT is NOT the underlying asset it abstractly represents…
  - pests 28d ago
    > The difference matters quite a lot. Please go on as I do not get your point.
    - dgellow 28d ago
      You spend $100 to get tokens from Claude. Then go to your friend and tell them you are willing to sell the tokens you got for $50, it’s a bargain! They look at you, tell you that makes absolutely no sense, and why the fuck would they want to buy your tokens, ie something that only makes sense in your very specific prompting context. Tokens don’t have an inherent value and have no other properties that would make they tradeable. Another way to think about it: a company that spends $1M on tokens is burning that money hoping they will be able to recoup by generating a better product. If it would be tradeable, they could spend $1M to generate tokens, produce absolutely no product, and just resell all those tokens to get their money back. That’s obviously nonsense, that’s not at all what tokens are. And they cannot transform the tokens they got into compute, you need to consume hardware and energy to mint tokens, you cannot convert tokens into hardware

Taikhoom10 28d ago

Yeah, I mean, it looks like a network effect, but anybody can aggregate the models; rather, it is the switching costs in the logs and work, and the cost savings, etc.