The raise for Fellows
Status: Pending counselStatus: Not decided
Draft terms
These terms are a draft. They are subject to legal review and may change before they are final. Final terms are published before any raise opens.
Announcement only. The terms below explain a proposed design for discussion and may change after legal consultation. Applications and raises are not open. Season 1 is expected in early 2027; exact dates remain unpublished.
Fellows may raise on Merces by issuing Human Equity Units (HEUs): backers fund the Fellow now and receive a capped share of the Fellow's attested income. The season's raise terms, which a Fellow would set, are draft guardrails, settled only after legal consultation, and several of them differ from how the protocol works today. Raising is optional: entering Humanathon never obliges anyone to raise.
Status: Status: Pending counsel
Draft terms that differ from the protocol today
The draft terms use familiar words, such as cap, lockup and buy back, with meanings that differ from the protocol's. The protocol column below describes the Merces code as built; the platform pages describe it in full. Each row is an open item pending counsel, not a defect. They are listed in the open questions, and Kunal settles them only after counsel advises.
| Draft season term | The protocol as built today |
|---|---|
| A fixed term of 12 to 36 months. The landing page says one to three years, then it ends. | No term. A series ends at its cap, by buy-back, or by extinguishment. |
| monthly payouts, and a monthly income floor set by the issuer and disclosed up front. | Quarterly reports against a yearly threshold. Holders claim whenever a payment has reached the vault. |
| A cap of 1.5 to 3 times the raise; the obligation ends at the cap. | A cap per unit, as a multiple of the issue price, within bounds the code sets. The draft's lower bound is below them, so the code would refuse it. |
| A fixed price per unit, set by the issuer. A conviction-book reference is shown, not binding. | A sealed-bid auction that clears at one price, or, on Solana only, a curve raise. There is no fixed-price mode. |
| Stake conversions and pre-committed anchor backers fill 30 to 50 percent of the target at open; a Fellow's top point-holders get an early allocation window. | No reserved allocation and no early window. A sealed-bid raise allocates by price alone, and a wallet cap the issuer picks within bounds limits what one wallet takes on. |
| Transfers locked to the original backer until 3 monthly payouts are attested, then only between verified backers. No open secondary market in Season 1. | A lockup the issuer picks, with a standard value, then quarterly transfer windows, which ship switched off. Curve units trade freely. |
| Buy-out at the cap, or on a schedule set at issue. The landing page says buy back early at a price set when you raise. | The issuer may buy back the whole series after the lockup, at a formula price that depends on time and payment history. Nothing schedules a buy-back. Reaching the cap retires the series, which is not a buy-back. |
| 5 Fellows raise on the lead partner's chain. | Code exists for Solana and for EVM chains. Nothing is deployed on any public network. |
| A public leaderboard, and a conviction-book reference on the raise page. | The platform shows no scores or rankings of people. It lists series by payment status, then by date. |
| An income share of 2 to 10 percent in total, across all HEUs the person has issued. | Each series commits to its own rate. Nothing limits the total across an issuer's series. |
| A raise size with a minimum and a target. Minimum not met means a full refund. | Matches a sealed-bid raise, which refunds every bid in full when it fails. A curve raise has no deadline and no refund. |
| Backers pay in a USD stablecoin supported on the partner chain. | The code fixes no list of stablecoins per chain. |
Final terms are published before any raise opens. Until then, no page in this section describes a draft term as protocol behaviour, and no platform page describes a draft term at all.
The four paths out of a season
The season plan gives 4 paths.
- An anchored raise. Fellows only in Season 1. It opens 1 week after Proof Day and runs 2 weeks. Stake conversions and pre-committed anchor backers fill 30 to 50 percent of the target at open; eligible backers fill the rest.
- The Finalist fast-track. No raise in Season 1. After 90 more days of monthly proofs, Finalists can open a raise in the next window, so the oracle has more history on them before money rides on it.
- The company route. Anyone building a company can do a deal with an accelerator or fund through the draft window, off-platform and outside Merces.
- Grant-only. Anyone can keep the prize and stipend and issue nothing.
What the issuer would set
Inside the draft guardrails, the issuer chooses the income share, the term, the cap, the income floor, the raise size with its minimum and target, the stablecoin, the price per unit, and the buy-out schedule. The chain and the transfer rule are not issuer-set in Season 1: the chain is set with the lead partner and announced with them, and transfers follow the season rule above. Merces has implementations for Solana and Monad. A live deployment has not been verified.
The landing page states the raise in five limits, quoted here as written:
Capped. Payments stop at a set multiple of what you raised.
Time-boxed. One to three years, then it ends.
Yours to end. Buy back early at a price set when you raise.
Your terms. You set the share, term and size inside clear limits.
Free for you. Backers pay the fees.
Backers pay the Merces fee. Issuers pay nothing. The raise page links the season record and the frozen mandate, and shows the conviction-book reference. Backers see income detail only for Fellows who raise.
The legal gate
An HEU is a claim on future income, so the plan treats it as a security in most places until counsel says otherwise. No raise opens without a written opinion that covers the structure, which backers may take part (professional only, or wider), and which countries issuers and backers can be in. Raise eligibility by country follows that opinion, so some entrants may be season-only. The landing page says it plainly: raises are available only where and to whom applicable law allows, legal review is in progress, and nothing on the site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, securities.
The fallback ladder
If the opinion is late or restrictive, the raise steps down 3 rungs. The season itself runs either way.
- Restricted raise: anchor and professional backers only, no open tranche.
- Commitments only: backers sign commitments at Proof Day; the raise opens once cleared.
- Grant-only season: prizes and fellowships as planned; raises move to Season 2.
The chain
Season 1 raises run on the lead partner's network, announced with them. The docs name no chain until then: Status: Not decided
What can go wrong
- Every term on this page is draft. Counsel may change any of them, and the final terms may differ from both columns above.
- The raise may not open in Season 1 at all. The fallback ladder ends in a grant-only season.
- Where a draft term differs from the protocol, the protocol as built today would refuse it. Running the draft terms needs either a protocol change or a different term.
- Raises open only where and to whom the law allows. An entrant may win a place and still be unable to raise where they live.
- Payments to backers come only from attested income. If a Fellow's income is lower than forecast, backers receive less, or nothing.
- An anchor commitment through the conviction book converts only if the entrant reaches the top 15 and opens a raise.