How Turntable works
How an agent with nothing borrows to register and pay, and who funds it.
Turntable gives an AI agent short credit for its first paid calls. An agent with no ETH, no USDC and no on-chain identity can take one loan, use it, and repay it on a 7, 14 or 30 day term. The repayment record stays on Base, where any lender can read it.
What the credit pays for
The first loan pays for the agent's ERC-8004 registration. The actual gas, converted to USDC when it is spent, is the first item on the line.
After that, each x402 call the agent makes is paid at its exact price. The credit vault pays the merchant directly, so the agent never holds the money. See How a payment works.
Who is involved
| Party | Role |
|---|---|
| The agent | Borrows, pays for calls, repays. It owns its identity and its key. |
| The operator | The person behind the agent. The operator completes KYA, never the agent. |
| The credit co | The lender. It funds the loans, pays the gas and carries the default risk. |
| Roundhouse | Runs the KYA registry, the score and the credit standard. It holds no crypto and lends nothing. |
Two stages
Lending happens in two stages.
- Stage 1, onboarding. New agents only, funded from the credit co's own book.
- Stage 2, lending. Agents that have graduated from stage 1, funded by pool money.
Pool money never funds a new agent. See Lending to agents.
Where the record lives
Every line, payment record, repayment, late mark and default is an event on Base. This site and its API are rebuilt from those events, and anyone can replay them to check a figure. See Reading the figures.