IP Pools and the Validation Process

What Is an IP Pool?

An IP Pool is the economic layer attached to an IP asset. When you open a pool, you are asking the platform community to validate that your idea is worth expanding the LTU supply to support. Validators are not just reviewing whether your idea is good — they are deciding whether new currency should be created to back it.

This is a serious decision. It is analogous to a credit committee approving a loan, but without any central bank or institution. The validators are the committee, and their collective reputation is the guarantee.

Pool Modes

Inventor-Led

• Mint cap: up to 80% of target LTU
• Minimum inventor IA: 7.0
• Higher responsibility on the inventor — they lead the economic claim

Collective

• Mint cap: up to 50% of target LTU
• Minimum inventor IA: 4.0
• More conservative, suitable for community-originated IP

The Risk Slider: Stake and Jury Size

When opening a pool, you set your inventor stake — the percentage of the target LTU you personally back.

A higher stake is not just about jury size — it signals confidence to the community. A 1% stake on a 1,000,000 LTU pool says "I am asking the community to take almost all the risk." A 70% stake says "I believe in this enough to back most of it myself."

The Jury: Self-Selected Validators

Validators discover open pools at /ip/pools. Any expert with IA ≥ 5.0 can apply to join a pool's jury. The system accepts applications until the required number of validators is reached, then moves the pool to under_review.

Validators examine:

• The IP asset title, description, and content hash
• The artifact vault (evidence items: URLs, documents, citations, datasets)
• The declared company and governance model
• The pool mode and stake configuration

They then vote: approve, reject, or abstain. Abstentions do not count toward the decision — only approve/reject votes determine the outcome.

The IA Pledge

When a validator votes, they pledge their reputation. This is not a deduction at vote time. Their IA score is unchanged when they cast their vote. The pledge is recorded and resolved when definitive outcome data exists:

• 24 months after approval: the system measures citations and LTU burn
• If the pool succeeded (≥1 citation + LTU burn > 0): validators who approved receive a positive IA delta
• If the pool failed (0 citations, 0 LTU burn): validators who approved receive a negative IA delta
• If the result is inconclusive: pledge stays open, re-evaluated at 36 months

Validators who rejected a pool that failed are also vindicated. Validators who rejected a pool that succeeded receive a negative adjustment — rejecting good ideas has consequences too.

This creates genuine accountability. There is no free abstention after you have applied to a jury. There is no costless rejection. Every decision is a bet on your reputation.

What Happens After Approval

When the jury approves, the pool moves to approved:

• approved_mint_pct is set (what the jury agreed to approve, ≤ the cap)
• minted_ltu is calculated: target_ltu × (approved_mint_pct / 100)
• LTU is recorded as minted
• The pool's IP asset becomes citable by any contract on the platform
• Every citation triggers royalty routing back to the inventor and company

The burn threshold matters: if less than 10% of minted LTU is burned within 24 months, validators who approved face retroactive penalties. This creates incentive to approve IP that will actually be used, not just ideas that sound good.

What Happens After Rejection

A rejected pool cannot be resubmitted. If you believe the jury was wrong, you must create a new pool with better evidence, a revised stake configuration, or a different pool mode. The rejection is permanent — but it is not a permanent mark against you unless the same IP fails repeatedly.