Ship it or pay your holders.

By default, a council of three AI judges decides. Each runs on a frontier model from a different company: OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Each judge reads the terms and evidence on its own, no ruling is made until two agree, and every opinion is published. Each judge also says how confident it is; that figure is published, but every vote counts the same. If no two judges reach the same ruling, a backup judge decides, if the bond names one. If it doesn’t, the bond is settled as if nobody ruled and does what its terms say for that case, which by default is to pay holders. A creator can name a person or team to judge instead. A creator can also rely on an automatic check that reads the result directly from the blockchain, either on its own or alongside the council or a named judge. Whoever a bond names to rule on it, whether the council or a person or team, is called its verifier, and a bond that relies on the check alone has none. That choice is public from day one, so holders can decide whether they trust it before they buy. A bond can also name an appeal panel. If it does, anyone other than the panel can appeal a ruling, including the council’s, by putting down a deposit within the appeal window the bond sets. The bond pays out only once that window closes. The deposit comes back if the panel overturns the ruling or doesn’t answer in time, and goes to the panel if it upholds the ruling.

The judges are instructed to treat evidence as something to weigh, never as instructions to follow. If a page tries to tell them what to decide, each judge reports it in its opinion as an attempt to manipulate the ruling and decides on the rest of the evidence. Every link is fetched once and saved, so all three read the same copy, and they rule only on public evidence anyone could check. Shipped operates the three judges, but the council’s members were fixed when it was set up, so nobody, Shipped included, can add, remove or replace one. Every opinion names the model that wrote it and the version of the instructions it followed. No single judge decides, because two must agree. Every opinion is published with its fingerprint recorded on chain, so anyone can confirm it hasn’t been changed after the fact.

Only if the creator gives up, or an early acceptance is overturned on appeal. Before the deadline, the verifier can only accept delivery; a rejection has to wait until the date has passed. If the bond names an appeal panel, an early acceptance can be appealed, and the panel can overturn it before the deadline. A creator who knows they won’t make it can concede early. The bond then settles right away, and holders can claim their shares after its payout list has been public for two days, so anyone can check it first.

Not on their own. Once a bond is posted, its money is held in escrow by a smart contract until the bond settles. The only way it returns to the creator without a ruling is if the bond’s public terms say so and nobody rules in time. That outcome is stamped “unruled” and never counts as shipped.

The contracts can’t be upgraded, and no one, Shipped included, can withdraw a bond’s money, change its terms, or rule on a bond they weren’t named on. The settings Shipped controls (which assets a bond can hold, the fee rate for new bonds, and whether new bonds can be posted) apply only to bonds that haven’t been posted yet. Shipped does have a role in payouts: it calculates every holder’s share from the project’s public transfer history, using the rules published in Shipped’s docs, then publishes the list and gives anyone two days to check it. During those two days it can cancel a list so that a corrected one can be published. Claims open only on a list that has stood for two days without being canceled.

Each bond sets how long its verifier has to rule after the deadline, and what happens if that time passes without a ruling. Paying holders is the default. A creator can choose otherwise when they post the bond, and that choice is public like every other term. A bond that pays some or all of its money to its creator when nobody rules is stamped “unruled” and counts as neither shipped nor a miss.

The project’s holders, weighted by how much they held and for how long between the day the bond was posted and its deadline. A wallet that buys in at the last minute receives almost nothing, so the bond goes to the people who held while the promise was open. The creator, the bond’s judges and any wallets the bond excludes are left out. The bond’s terms can also cap what any one holder receives, and anything over the cap is shared among the other holders. A bond can name a single address to receive the payout instead of holders, and a bond about an app with no token or collection has to.

Once the bond settles, Shipped calculates each holder’s share from the project’s public transfer history, publishes the list and leaves two days for anyone to check it. Anyone who finds a wrong share can report it within those two days (the docs explain how). If a share is wrong, Shipped cancels the list and publishes a corrected one, which gets its own two-day check. After that, holders claim their share whenever they like, and claims never expire.

Shipped

The creator delivered, and the bond was released to them.

Partial

The verifier ruled it partly delivered and split the bond between creator and holders, as the bond’s terms allow. It counts as partial: neither shipped nor a miss.

Not shipped

The creator missed, and the bond was paid to holders. It counts as a miss.

Conceded

The creator gave up, and the bond was paid to holders. It counts as a miss.

Expired

Nobody ruled, and the bond was paid to holders. It counts as a miss.

Unruled

Nobody ruled, and the bond’s terms released some or all of it to the creator. It counts as neither shipped nor a miss.

Void

After the deadline, the verifier ruled that the promise could no longer be judged, so the bond was settled the way its terms say it should be when nobody rules. It counts as neither shipped nor a miss.

A bond is held in WETH or the USDG stablecoin on Robinhood Chain. Anyone can add to a bond while it’s open. A launch can also pledge part of its creator fee. Until the bond is decided or its deadline passes, the pledged share of every fee paid in the bond’s asset is added to the bond, and so is the pledged share of fees paid in ETH when the bond is held in WETH. Shipped’s fee is 1% for bonds posted now, and it comes only out of what’s released to the creator, never out of holders’ payouts.