Engy (SN53): buybacks measured on-chain, billing implied from tokens served

Engy sells pay-as-you-go inference on open-weight models (Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi) through one API. Engy publishes a ledger of every alpha buy-and-burn and a daily count of tokens and requests its gateway receives. It does not publish revenue. This page annualizes the buybacks as measured and derives a billing range from the tokens.

Who earns what. Customers pay Engy in dollars at the per-token prices on engy.ai/pricing. Miners are paid in SN53 alpha from emissions, not from customer money. Engy states that revenue funds the buybacks: the ledger reads "Revenue is used to buy back and permanently burn sn53 alpha" (provider.engy.ai/buyback), and co-founder Ning told the fund on 17 Aug 2026 that "most of our revenue" would go to buybacks [M]. Engy keeps whatever is not spent on buybacks. Each burn is an add_stake_burn call that swaps TAO into SN53 alpha and burns it.

Measured versus derived. Buybacks [V] are Engy's ledger, with each entry an on-chain extrinsic; two were checked against taostats (below). Tokens and requests [V site] are Engy's own gateway counts, not checked against the chain. Implied billing [derived] multiplies those tokens by Engy's current list price and assumes every token was paid for at list: no free credits, promotions, probe traffic or negotiated discounts. It is an estimate under those assumptions, given as a range, not a measurement of revenue.

Implied billing (derived)

Daily range × 365High, 7-day average × 365Low, 7-day average × 365

Each day's tokens per model × Engy's list price. High: every prompt token at the full input rate. Low: every prompt token at the cached rate. Completion tokens at the output rate in both.

Buybacks (measured)

Each day's burns × 3657-day average × 36530-day average × 365

Annualized buy-and-burn spend, in dollars at the time of each burn as Engy's ledger values it. Burns are lumpy (every few days), so the averages carry the signal.

Buybacks against billing

Range of buybacks ÷ implied billing, trailing 7 days100%

Above 100%, Engy burned more in those 7 days than the same days' tokens would bill at list price.

Usage (measured by Engy's gateway)

Each day7-day average

By model, week and epoch

Model	Tokens	Requests	Input $/1M	Cached $/1M	Output $/1M	Implied billing, low	Implied billing, high

Buybacks and implied billing, every week since the first burnWeeks start Monday. Annualized = the week's total ÷ its days × 365. Token data starts 1 Sep 2026 (Engy shows a rolling 30 days); earlier weeks have buybacks only. Latest day partial and excluded.

Week of	Buybacks	Burns	Alpha burned	Buybacks annualized	Requests	Tokens	Implied billing annualized	Buybacks ÷ billing

Every buy-and-burn in Engy's ledgerFrom provider.engy.ai/api/buyback; USD is Engy's valuation at the time. Each row links to the extrinsic on taostats.

Time (UTC)	Alpha burned	USD	Extrinsic

Seven-day epochs: miners scored and requests servedFrom provider.engy.ai/epochs; requests are counted per epoch, so this extends the request history back to July

Epoch	Window (UTC)	Status	Miners	Requests	Requests a day