What things cost, and what you earn

Two currencies, kept deliberately apart. One is what it costs to make something. The other is what you earn when someone wants it. Keeping them separate is what makes the second one mean something.

STX - what making something costs

Every piece you make lives on a blockchain, permanently, and that blockchain charges for the space in its own currency. Right now that currency is called STX.

• You pay the place that keeps your work. Think of it as rent on a permanent shelf, paid once. Publishing a page, dropping a bottle, launching an event - each costs a little STX.
• It is one number, not a price plus a surprise. The fee and the network's own charge come out of the same pocket, so an app can tell you the whole cost up front.
• You are given some to start. A starter amount arrives with your invite, and apps top you up. You are never asked to buy any before you make your first thing.

Sats - what you earn

Sats are the opposite of STX in every way that matters.

• They are real Bitcoin. A "sat" is the smallest unit of Bitcoin, the way a cent is the smallest unit of a dollar. You earn it, you spend it, and you can move it out to a wallet only you control. We name it honestly because owning it is the whole point.
• You earn them. Sats arrive when someone collects a piece you made. They are income, not an allowance.
• You spend them to collect. Keeping a copy of someone else's work costs sats - and pays that creator, exactly the way collecting your work pays you.
• They are scarce. Sats only exist on the protocol because someone valued something enough to collect it. That scarcity is deliberate. It is what makes a sat worth earning.

Your balance

The sats you can spend are your balance. We say balance, not "earnings," on purpose: earning is one way your balance fills, but it will not be the only one - tips and other streams are coming. The word for the pool you spend from is your balance. "Earning" is reserved for the act that fills it - you earn sats when someone collects your work.

Why they are different things

It would be simpler to have one currency. The separation is not tidiness - the two are different kinds of thing.

• STX is a cost. It is what somewhere else charges to keep your work forever. You spend it and it is gone, the way rent is.
• Sats are money. They came from a person who wanted what you made. Nobody hands them to you.

They never turn into each other. There is no buy-your-way-to-sats and no swap in the everyday flow: you earn your way into Bitcoin by making things people want. That is the difference between a cost you paid and value you created.

Why not one single made-up unit

Rising Tide used to call the create side credits - one name, hiding whichever token the blockchain underneath happened to charge in. That was retired in August 2026, and it is worth saying why, because the idea is appealing.

A credit you hold a balance of is a token we would have to issue, back with a reserve, and promise to honour. Rising Tide is meant to be something other people can run themselves, and a promise like that cannot be handed over with the code. It would also have hidden something you should be able to see: what a given blockchain actually charges. Different ones cost different amounts, and a single flat price quietly papers over that.

So you see the real name of the real thing. It is one more word to learn, and it is the honest one. This is the only page here that names it - everywhere else, publishing just costs what it costs.

Where this goes next

• Your first earnings - how the loop turns your first creation into your first sats
• From earnings to savings - moving your sats into Bitcoin savings you hold yourself