Background
- AI inference tokens are billing credits from GPU cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Together AI, etc.), each unit covering a small amount of LLM processing. Currently, tokens are locked to the provider you bought them from and cannot be resold or transferred.
- Mtok.market is a proposed non-custodial spot marketplace where users could trade these tokens — buy unused ones at a discount or sell surplus — akin to secondary markets for AWS reserved instances or airline tickets.
- "Non-custodial" means you keep control of your own wallet, reducing the risk of exchange hacks or freezes.
- A "spot market" means immediate, pay-as-you-go trades, not long-term contracts.
- Why this matters: if it works, it could lower inference costs, reduce vendor lock-in, and create price competition across providers. The big question is whether cloud providers will honor tokens bought on secondary markets — that is the main hurdle.