The live program is a single-tier affiliate program: approved affiliates earn a percentage of what referred clients pay, in ACFT, after a refund hold. See the affiliate guide and program terms. This whitepaper describes a broader long-term design. Its partner tiers, staking vault, USDC election, buyer credits, and catalog are not part of the live program.
The token’s on-chain state and holder distribution can change after the paper’s September 2026 snapshot.
Abstract
Autonomous City Founders Token (ACFT) launched on Polygon as a community meme token tied to the AutonomousCity brand. This Version 2.1 whitepaper documents a deliberate pivot: ACFT becomes the utility reward and access layer for a new affiliate marketing platform that sells the automation services of AutonomousCity.ai — private AI “Desks” that take repeatable work off operating businesses — and, in a later phase, curated third-party automation and AI products.
The token contract does not change. Genesis supply was 50,000,000 ACFT on Polygon (contract 0xCCE8E0B372ebF142959dC4297828d1BBe0d985D2), with 0% buy/sell tax. 4% of that supply — 2,000,000 ACFT — has already been burned. Circulating supply is 48,000,000 ACFT. Creator holdings are 0.84% of circulating supply; no individual holder owns more than 5%; the top 10 holders control 41.66%. What changes in this paper is what the remaining token is for. Instead of open-ended “city founder” narrative, ACFT now settles affiliate commissions, gates partner tiers, funds buyer credits, and ties a liquid on-chain unit to a real services business with published prices.
Contents
1. Why the pivot
2. The product being sold — AutonomousCity.ai Desks
3. The Autonomous Affiliate Network
4. ACFT utility design
5. Token specification
6. Tokenomics, burn, distribution, and revenue routing
7. Affiliate tiers and staking
8. Third-party catalog (phase two)
9. Roadmap
10. Risks
11. Disclaimer
Appendix A — Official references
Appendix B — Glossary
1. Why the pivot
The original ACFT paper framed the token as a community meme celebrating AI agents and futuristic cities. That framing built a holder base and a brand, but it did not give the token a job that a customer invoice can pay for. Meme culture remains welcome. It is no longer the thesis.
AutonomousCity.ai now operates as a private AI systems firm. It sells named systems — Front Desk OS, Revenue Desk OS, Ops Desk OS, Content Desk OS — through a fixed sequence of Audit, Build, and Steward. Published entry prices sit in the thousands of dollars, with recurring stewardship in the high hundreds to low thousands per month. That is a high-ticket services business. High-ticket services businesses are classically distributed through affiliates, agencies, operators, and trusted introducers.
The pivot therefore connects three things that already exist:
- A real product. Desks with written job descriptions, shadow-mode acceptance tests, and published prices.
- A distribution problem. Founders, operators, agencies, and content creators who already talk to $1M–$20M service businesses.
- A live token with a reduced float. ACFT on Polygon, 48,000,000 circulating after a completed 4% burn, verified ERC-20, existing liquidity venues, and no whale above 5%.
ACFT’s new job is to make that distribution loop cheaper to run and more interesting to join: pay affiliates in a unit they already hold, let serious partners stake for higher rev-share, and let buyers spend or hold ACFT for credits on Audits and Builds. Third-party automation products are added only after the first-party loop works.
2. The product being sold
Affiliates do not sell “AI.” They introduce a named system that owns one job inside an operating company. AutonomousCity.ai builds that system in the client’s own stack where possible, runs it in shadow mode, then puts it live against written tests. A human override always exists. The firm’s public site publishes the sequence and the prices below; affiliates must use current published figures, not this paper, at the point of sale.
2.1 The sequence
- Autonomous Audit — 10 days, $1,997. Map the expensive motions, rank them, recommend one Desk, issue a fixed build quote. The Audit fee is credited in full if the client signs that build within 21 days.
- Desk Build — 14–21 days, fixed price after Audit. Side environment, then shadow mode, then acceptance tests and go-live. Month one of Steward is included.
- City Steward — monthly. Watch ($997), Tend ($2,497), or Govern ($4,997). Automations drift; Steward is the watch and the improvement.
2.2 Published Desk catalog (first-party)
| Desk | Job it owns | From (build) |
|---|---|---|
| Front Desk OS | Answers the line, texts missed calls, books open calendar slots, writes the record. ≤60s response target during coverage hours. | $6,500 |
| Revenue Desk OS | Catches the lead, qualifies it, follows up on a 7–14 day cadence, delivers a weekly pipeline recap. | $7,500 |
| Ops Desk OS | Takes documents and invoices out of the inbox and into the system. Weekly operations digest. | $8,500 |
| Content Desk OS | A brand-voice engine that produces a weekly content pack as an operation, not a campaign. | $4,500 |
Prices are USD, exclude pass-through model/telephony usage unless bundled, and may change. Source of truth: autonomouscity.ai pricing pages. Target customer: service and asset businesses doing roughly $1M–$20M who can point to a weekly motion that already costs money.
2.3 What affiliates are actually introducing
A good referral is an owner who can name the motion (missed calls, stale leads, invoice pile, content that never ships), has a calendar or CRM worth connecting, and will appoint a human override. A bad referral is a pre-revenue team shopping for a $500 chatbot. The affiliate program is built to reward the first kind of introduction and to ignore the second.
3. The Autonomous Affiliate Network
The Autonomous Affiliate Network (AAN) is the new commercial surface. It is a partner portal plus tracking plus payout rules. It is not a multi-level scheme. One introducing partner is credited for a qualified sale. Optional second-touch credit may exist later for agencies that co-close; it will be published in program terms, not implied here.
3.1 Roles
| Role | What they do | How they get paid |
|---|---|---|
| Citizen Affiliate | Share a tracked link or code. Introduce owners to the Audit. | Base bounty in ACFT (and/or USDC election) on paid Audit and on signed Build. |
| Operator Affiliate | Agencies, consultants, and operators who run a pipeline of service businesses. | Higher bounty + recurring Steward share while the client stays on Steward and the partner remains in good standing. |
| Founder Affiliate | Highest tier. Staked ACFT + proven close volume. May co-brand materials. | Top bounty, Steward residual, early catalog access, limited co-marketing. |
| Catalog Vendor | Phase two. A third-party automation or AI product approved for the marketplace. | Pays a listing / success fee in ACFT; may offer its own ACFT-denominated promo. |
| Buyer / Client | The operating business purchasing Audit, Desk, Steward, or catalog items. | May apply ACFT credits toward invoices; holding ACFT is never required to buy. |
3.2 Qualified events
Payouts fire only on events the operating company can see in its books:
- Paid Audit — client pays the $1,997 Audit. Affiliate receives the Audit bounty.
- Signed Build — client signs the Desk Build and the deposit / first invoice clears. Affiliate receives the Build bounty. If the Audit fee was credited into the Build, the program does not double-pay the Audit portion.
- Live Steward month — client is billed and pays a Steward plan. Qualifying Operator and Founder affiliates receive a residual for a published number of months, subject to churn and clawback rules.
- Catalog purchase (phase two) — a tracked buy of a listed third-party product. Bounty per that vendor’s schedule.
Clicks, signups, and “interest” do not pay. Chargebacks, refunds under the Desk guarantee (second-half Build refund if acceptance tests fail), and unpaid invoices reverse or hold the associated bounty. Program terms will state the clawback window in days, not in slogans.
3.3 Attribution
Launch attribution is hybrid: a unique link and code in the partner portal, last-click within a published cookie / CRM window (proposed 90 days for Audit, extendable if the same owner opens a Build from that Audit). On-chain, the partner’s payout address is registered to their account. Phase-two work may add Merkle-claim or signed-attestation settlement so that affiliates can verify a payout root without doxxing clients. Client identities stay off-chain.
4. ACFT utility design
ACFT has five utilities, all optional for the end customer, all mandatory to document because they are the reason the token is no longer “just a meme.”
4.1 Commission settlement
Default payout unit for affiliate bounties is ACFT, transferred from the Affiliate Reward Treasury to the partner’s registered Polygon address after the clawback hold. Partners may elect a USDC split (proposed 50/50 or 70/30 ACFT-bonus) so that working affiliates are not forced to eat token volatility to pay rent. The ACFT-only election carries a published bonus (proposed +15–25% ACFT notional at the 7-day TWAP used for that cycle). TWAP, conversion venue, and cycle calendar will live in the portal, not in Discord screenshots.
4.2 Tier staking
Affiliate tiers are gated by two inputs: trailing qualified volume and ACFT staked in a program vault (not a lock that confiscates principal). Stake is a signal of alignment and a sybil cost. Unstaking has a short cooldown so that tier-farming around payout dates is unattractive. Stake does not entitle the holder to company revenue, governance over the operating firm, or any claim on client contracts. It only changes the partner’s published rev-share schedule.
4.3 Buyer credits
Clients may optionally pay a portion of an Audit or Build invoice in ACFT at a published credit rate (example: 1 ACFT applied at the same 7-day TWAP, plus a small holder bonus capped so that the company is not selling services at an unbounded discount). Credits are a customer perk and a sink. They are not a guaranteed discount coupon printed on this paper; the live rate card governs.
4.4 Recurring Steward kickbacks
Operator and Founder affiliates who introduced a client that remains on Steward receive a residual funded from Steward gross, not from token inflation. Residuals stop when the client churns, when the partner is removed for terms violations, or when the published residual term ends. This is the cleanest link between token rewards and a real SaaS-like cash flow.
4.5 Bounties and community work
A slice of the Reward Treasury continues to fund the original community muscle — memes, explainers, teardown threads, local operator dinners — but only against a bounty board with acceptance criteria. “Post and hope” is retired. This keeps the culture without pretending that content is a substitute for closed Audits.
5. Token specification
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Autonomous City Founders Token |
| Ticker | ACFT |
| Network | Polygon PoS (EVM, chain ID 137) |
| Standard | ERC-20, source verified on PolygonScan |
| Contract | 0xCCE8E0B372ebF142959dC4297828d1BBe0d985D2 |
| Decimals | 18 (standard ERC-20) |
| Genesis supply | 50,000,000 ACFT at deployment. No mint function in active issuance policy. |
| Burned (completed) | 2,000,000 ACFT — 4% of genesis supply, already burned and removed from circulation. |
| Circulating supply | 48,000,000 ACFT |
| Creator holdings | 0.84% of circulating supply |
| Largest single holder | No individual holder owns more than 5% |
| Top 10 holders | 41.66% of supply |
| Transfer tax | 0% buy / 0% sell |
| Primary venues | QuickSwap pairs (ACFT/USDC and ACFT/WPOL) and any later listed venue |
| Explorer | polygonscan.com/token/0xCCE8E0B372ebF142959dC4297828d1BBe0d985D2 |
The contract is a verified StandardToken with pause capability. Pause is an emergency brake, not a feature of the affiliate program. Any use of pause, proxy change, or treasury-wallet rotation will be disclosed on the official X account and the portal status page. Partners should treat unofficial “new contract” announcements as hostile until they match the address printed here.
6. Tokenomics, burn, distribution, and revenue routing
6.1 Completed burn and circulating supply
A supply reduction has already been executed. Of the 50,000,000 ACFT minted at genesis, 2,000,000 ACFT (4%) have been burned and removed from circulation. Circulating supply is therefore 48,000,000 ACFT. This paper treats that burn as a completed event, not a promise. No new tokens are minted to replace what was burned, and affiliate bounties cannot be funded by inflation.
| Metric | Figure | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis supply | 50,000,000 ACFT | Minted at deployment; cap not increased. |
| Tokens burned | 2,000,000 ACFT (4%) | Completed. Permanently removed. |
| Circulating supply | 48,000,000 ACFT | Live figure used throughout this paper. |
| Further scheduled burns | None in this version | Any future burn requires a separate, dated notice. |
6.2 Ownership distribution (current)
Holder concentration is already dispersed enough to matter for an affiliate-reward token. A token used to pay working partners should not sit in one wallet that can dump a cycle’s payroll onto the chart. The snapshot reflected in this paper:
| Ownership check | Figure |
|---|---|
| Creator holdings | 0.84% of circulating supply |
| Largest single holder | No individual holder owns more than 5% |
| Top 10 holders combined | 41.66% of supply |
| Outside the top 10 | 58.34% of supply |
6.3 Genesis allocation (original 50M cap)
The 2025 community paper published the following genesis split against the original 50,000,000 cap. Version 2.1 does not remint and does not rewrite that history. The 4% burn reduced circulating units after allocation; remaining community and marketing balances are re-purposed toward the affiliate loop. Figures below are genesis shares, not a claim that every bucket is still full.
| Bucket | Share | Tokens | Current purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public float / sale | 40% | 20,000,000 | Circulating market. No change to policy. |
| Team (vested) | 20% | 10,000,000 | Continues under existing vest. Team tokens are not Reward Treasury. |
| Liquidity | 15% | 7,500,000 | DEX inventory and future venue depth. Not spent as commissions. |
| Community rewards | 15% | 7,500,000 | Seed of the Affiliate Reward Treasury + bounty board. |
| Marketing | 10% | 5,000,000 | Partner enablement, co-marketing, and top-up of the Reward Treasury. |
Exact remaining balances in each wallet should be published on a public treasury page at launch of AAN, with PolygonScan links. This paper states policy, not a live wallet dump. Genesis bucket totals pre-date the 2,000,000 ACFT burn.
6.4 How a dollar becomes an ACFT bounty
The intended cash loop is simple on purpose:
- Client pays AutonomousCity.ai in USD (card, wire, or stablecoin).
- Company recognizes revenue for Audit / Build / Steward under its ordinary books.
- A published percentage of collected, non-refunded revenue is earmarked for the Partner Payout Pool (USD/USDC) and, separately, for Reward Treasury top-ups.
- Each payout cycle, the program converts the ACFT-denominated portion at a 7-day TWAP (or pays from inventory already held by the Reward Treasury) and transfers ACFT to partners who elected tokens.
- USDC-electing partners are paid from the Partner Payout Pool. No new ACFT is minted to make payroll.
Proposed opening earmark — subject to live program terms — is 10–20% of collected first-party gross on referred Audits and Builds, and 5–10% of collected Steward on residual-eligible accounts. Those percentages are commercial terms, not tokenomics law. They can move. What cannot move without a new paper is the rule: no inflation to pay affiliates.
6.5 Sinks and sources
| Flow | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Completed 4% burn | 2,000,000 ACFT → irrecoverable | Already executed. Circulating supply is 48,000,000. |
| Affiliate bounty (ACFT election) | Treasury → partner wallet | Primary ongoing distribution from remaining inventory. |
| Buyer invoice credits | Client → company (then possibly treasury/LP) | Sink. Reduces USD invoice; ACFT taken in. |
| Phase-two vendor listing / success fee | Vendor → treasury | Sink + quality filter. |
| Optional market buy from earmarked USD | USDC → ACFT (open market) | Inventory for bounties when treasury is thin. Not a promised buyback program. |
| Bounty-board grants | Treasury → creators | Small, criteria-gated. |
| Stake / unstake | Partner ↔ vault | No additional burn. Cooldown only. |
The 4% burn is complete. There is no further scheduled burn in this version. A future burn of unclaimed residuals or unused marketing dust would require a separate, dated notice. Do not assume additional scarcity events.
7. Affiliate tiers and staking
Tiers exist so that a person who drops a link once and an agency that sends four Builds a quarter are not paid the same. Numbers below are the opening proposal. Live tiers ship in the portal and can be tightened if they are gamed.
| Tier | Stake (ACFT) | Trailing 90-day volume | Audit bounty | Build bounty | Steward residual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizen | None | None required | 8% of Audit fee in ACFT-notional | 6% of Build fee | None |
| Operator | 25,000 | $15,000 referred collected | 12% | 10% | 5% of Steward for 12 paid months |
| Founder | 100,000 | $50,000 referred collected | 15% | 12% | 8% of Steward for 18 paid months |
Bounties are computed on collected USD, converted to ACFT at cycle TWAP if the partner elects tokens. Volume is referred collected revenue, not token market cap. Stake can be met by the partner’s own wallet or a declared agency treasury, not by pooled “rented” tokens from the Reward Treasury.
A partner who unstakes below the tier threshold drops tier at the next cycle. Residuals already earned on live Steward accounts grandfather for the remainder of that account’s residual term unless the partner is terminated for cause (spam, fake leads, brand damage, undisclosed paid shilling that violates platform rules).
8. Third-party catalog — phase two
Once first-party Audit/Build/Steward referrals are paying on time and the portal is not on fire, AAN can list a short catalog of third-party automation and AI products that sit next to a Desk: voice vendors, inbox tools, CRM hygiene, n8n/Make templates, evaluation harnesses, specialist agencies. Listing is a privilege, not an open bazaar.
Proposed listing rules:
- The vendor sells a named job, not a vibe. Same standard we apply to Desks.
- Listing application fee and/or annual seat in ACFT, sized to be annoying to spam vendors and trivial to a real product company.
- Success fee on tracked sales, split between the introducing affiliate and the Reward Treasury.
- Removal for downtime, bait pricing, or support abandonment.
- No token-project listings whose only product is another ticker. ACFT does not become a launchpad.
Holders do not vote vendors onto the catalog as a legally binding DAO action in Version 2.1. They can surface candidates through the bounty board. AutonomousCity.ai remains the merchant of record for first-party services and the editor of the catalog. That is intentional. A services firm that outsources quality control to token-weighted votes will ship junk and then blame governance.
9. Roadmap
| Window | Deliverable | Done looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 2026 | AAN portal v1 + this paper as the public spec | Apply, get a code, see a dashboard, receive first ACFT or USDC bounty on a paid Audit. |
| Q4 2026 | Treasury page | Genesis wallets, Reward Treasury, LP addresses, burn proof, and vest contracts linked from autonomouscity.ai. |
| Q1 2027 | Steward residuals + tier staking vault | Operator/Founder tiers live. Stake, cooldown, and residual ledger visible to the partner. |
| Q1 2027 | Buyer credit rate card | Optional ACFT payment against Audit/Build invoices with a published cap. |
| Q2 2027 | Catalog v1 | First 5–15 third-party products, listing fee in ACFT, tracked bounties. |
| Q3 2027 | Attested payouts | Cycle Merkle root or signed payout file so partners can check the math without seeing other partners’ volumes. |
| Backlog | Multi-chain payout wrapper | Only if Polygon UX becomes the thing partners complain about. The canonical token stays on Polygon. |
Dates are targets, not covenants. A slipped quarter is preferable to shipping a bounty program that cannot reconcile to the bank account.
10. Risks
A utility paper that skips risks is a brochure. Read these before you stake, refer, or write about ACFT as if the pivot were already complete.
- Execution risk. The affiliate portal, TWAP tooling, and residual ledger have to be built and staffed. Until they exist, this paper is a specification.
- Concentration risk. First-party revenue is a small services firm. A dry quarter of Desk sales means a dry quarter of honest bounties.
- Token liquidity risk. ACFT pairs have historically been thin. Paying bounties in ACFT into a thin book can move price against the partner. That is why a USDC election exists.
- Holder-mix risk. Current distribution (no holder above 5%, top 10 at 41.66%, creator at 0.84%) can concentrate later. A burn does not freeze the holder table.
- Regulatory risk. Affiliate marketing, token rewards, and “stake for a higher commission” sit near several legal tripwires depending on jurisdiction. Partners are responsible for their own tax and licensing. The company may geo-fence or KYC the portal.
- Classification risk. Calling a token “utility” does not decide how a regulator classifies it. This paper avoids profit promises for that reason.
- Key-person and brand risk. AutonomousCity.ai is not a protocol. If the operating company stops selling Desks, ACFT’s new utilities shrink to whatever catalog remains.
- Smart-contract risk. The live token can be paused. Future vaults can be buggy. Audits, if commissioned, will be linked; until then assume unaudited additional contracts.
- Narrative hangover. Older pages and posts described RWA tokenization, citizenship packages, and meme-city lore. Those stories can confuse buyers and affiliates. This paper is the override for token utility.
- Price risk. ACFT can lose nearly all market value regardless of how many Audits close, and regardless of the completed 4% burn. Holding it is not a substitute for being good at introductions.
11. Disclaimer
ACFT is a software token on a public blockchain. It is offered, if at all, as a utility instrument for participation in the Autonomous Affiliate Network and related ecosystem functions described above. Nothing in this document is an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, securities, investment contracts, or any interest in AutonomousCity.ai, its affiliates, client contracts, or assets.
No statement in this paper promises profit, price appreciation, dividends, buybacks, future burns, or a share of company revenue to holders merely because they hold ACFT. The 4% burn already executed reduced circulating supply; it is not a yield, not a floor, and not a forecast. Affiliate compensation is earned by referring paying customers under separately accepted program terms. Those terms control if they conflict with examples used here.
Forward-looking language (roadmap windows, proposed percentages, “phase two”) describes intent. It can change or fail. Past token prints, social posts, marketplace mockups, and the 2025 meme whitepaper are historical artifacts. Version 2.1 is the utility specification from the date on the cover. Holder-distribution figures are a snapshot and can move.
Distributed-ledger software, third-party venues, wallets, and bridges can fail, be exploited, or become inaccessible. You can lose the entire value of tokens you hold. Do your own research. If you need financial, legal, or tax advice, hire a human who is licensed to give it. This paper is not that human.
Jurisdiction: participation may be restricted. The operating company may refuse, freeze portal access, or withhold fiat payouts where required by law. On-chain transfers of ACFT remain subject to the token contract and the base-layer network, not to this document.
Appendix A — Official references
| Item | Reference |
|---|---|
| Product site | https://autonomouscity.ai |
| How it works | https://autonomouscity.ai/how-it-works |
| Token page | https://autonomouscity.ai/pages/acft-whitepaper |
| Contract | 0xCCE8E0B372ebF142959dC4297828d1BBe0d985D2 |
| Explorer | https://polygonscan.com/token/0xCCE8E0B372ebF142959dC4297828d1BBe0d985D2 |
| X | https://x.com/ACFTtoken |
| Telegram | https://t.me/acftfrens |
| Founder alias | Arya Voss · https://x.com/VossArya |
| This document | ACFT Utility Whitepaper v2.1 · September 2026 |
| Supersedes | ACFT community meme whitepaper, 2025 edition, and Utility Whitepaper v2.0 |
Appendix B — Glossary
| Term | Meaning in this paper |
|---|---|
| Desk | A named AutonomousCity.ai system that owns one written job (front desk, revenue, ops, or content) with human override. |
| Audit | Paid 10-day mapping engagement that recommends one Desk and quotes a fixed build. |
| Steward | Monthly keep-alive and improvement of a live Desk. |
| AAN | Autonomous Affiliate Network — the partner portal and ruleset. |
| Qualified event | Collected, non-refunded payment for Audit, Build, Steward, or catalog item attributed to a partner. |
| Reward Treasury | ACFT wallet(s) used to pay token-denominated bounties. Not the company operating account. |
| Circulating supply | 48,000,000 ACFT after the completed 4% (2,000,000) burn. |
| Burn | Permanent removal of tokens from circulation. The 4% burn is already done. |
| TWAP | Time-weighted average price over a published window, used to convert USD bounties into ACFT units. |
| Stake | ACFT deposited in the program vault to unlock a tier. Not a bond, not equity. |
© AutonomousCity.ai · ACFT Utility Whitepaper v2.1 · September 2026 · Polygon