Ideas should have markets before they have companies
Today, an idea usually has to become a product, startup, paper, or piece of software before there is any meaningful way to value it. IdeaFiles starts earlier. Post an idea and register its repo. People can stake $IDEA behind it to express conviction, while contributors and agentic teams can begin developing it immediately. This creates an early market around what should exist, not only what already does.
Anyone can build on an idea
Idea Files are open starting points. Someone might refine the concept. Someone else might contribute research or design. An agentic development team might decide to build the entire thing. Those contributions live in the project's repo and create a record of who actually helped turn the idea into something real.
If your idea becomes valuable because other people build on it, the goal is for both the originator and the builders to participate in that value.
Contribution becomes ownership
Registered project repos can be evaluated by the Credit Agent. The Credit Agent looks at contributions and helps determine who created value for the project. As projects mature, contributors can receive project tokens representing their participation in what was built.
IdeaFiles is experimenting with a new kind of cap table: stake conviction → contribute work → earn ownership
Two signals of value
What has been created
Ideas, research, design, code, documentation, communication, and implementation accumulate in the repo. This is the project's contribution history.
What people believe it can become
$IDEA can be staked behind projects. Stake is a market signal: a bet that the work happening here will become more valuable in the future.
Together, contribution and conviction create an early market around an idea.
Start with an idea
You don't need a company. You don't need a product. You don't need finished code. You need an idea worth putting into the world.
