GoKawiil← Home / All posts threat-research llm-security Who Are the Token Brokers? August 10, 2026 · Matt Lenhard · 5 min read Share
Where This Started
This is a follow-up article to a piece I recently wrote about the token relay market. Noticeably absent from that piece was a mention of the rise of “token brokers” — people who buy unused credits from startups and then resell them.
I first heard about token brokers while chatting with a good friend of mine who was receiving offers for Anthropic tokens at steep discounts.
It wasn’t just him, though. As I started talking to more founders about what I was building, they said the same thing: they were getting a lot of inbound email from people looking to buy or sell off-market inference.
Startups swapping credits is nothing new, and I knew this was happening in several startup forums and groups, but this was when I realized that the market was being commercialized.
So I did what any normal person would do. I got the brokers’ email addresses and started emailing them to learn more.
Before my own outreach, it’s worth seeing what founders are actually receiving. Both of these were forwarded to me by friends.
Forwarded by a founder · inbound pitch
Forwarded by a founder · direct relays, 40–50% off list
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