Every chip, followable.

The Glass Ledger is CHIP's structural answer to "where did my money go?" This page is pre-launch and static: it shows the public fields and privacy contract the future live ledger must obey before any real chip-ins are accepted.

"We hold power accountable. Starting with us."

A public, append-only proof contract.

The Glass Ledger is not a transparency report. It's not an annual PDF. In the live product, it will publish approved aggregate money movement for every arcade on CHIP. Today, this public page is static demo copy that defines the fields, privacy boundary, and correction model before launch.

What every line shows:

  • Line ID — a unique, sequential identifier
  • Date — when the aggregate public line is posted
  • Amount — the aggregate dollar figure
  • Category — expenditure type (e.g., FOIA request, ad placement, legal review, platform fee)
  • Description — what the money did
  • Boss/Earmark — which objective it served
  • Outcome — what resulted (linked where applicable)

What it enforces:

  • Creators cannot have "dark" expenditures. In the live product, approved aggregate outflows must be categorized and published.
  • Lines are append-only. Nothing is ever edited or deleted. Corrections appear as new lines that reference the original.
  • The ledger is default-public for every arcade. A cause cannot turn it off.

What it protects:

  • Individual donor identities are NEVER public. Aggregate amounts only.
  • Player-set caps and preferences are not in the ledger.
  • The ledger publishes money movement, not personal data.

From chip-in to line item.

The flow:

  1. A player reviews a $10 chip-in toward "Sunlight FOIA Batch." Before payment is accepted, CHIP shows the processor, recipient, fees, refund policy, and required disclosures.
  2. The cause spends $47 on a specific FOIA request targeting city council procurement records. The creator categorizes the expenditure in their Ledger Admin panel.
  3. Line #4412 appears on the Glass Ledger after launch: posted date, aggregate amount, category, description, boss earmark. Public and clickable.
  4. The player keeps a private Impact Receipt. The public ledger shows aggregate proof, not individual donor identity or receipt history.
  5. The cycle repeats. Every chip-in. Every expenditure. No exceptions.

Technical architecture (for the curious):

  • Append-only Postgres table with row-level tenant isolation
  • Future public read source — exposed only after source-of-truth fields and privacy rules are approved
  • Optionally hash-anchored for cryptographic proof (v2 roadmap)
  • Append-only source model: posted lines are corrected by later lines, not overwritten

We publish ours first.

CHIP publishes its own Glass Ledger before asking any creator to do the same. This ledger shows:

  • Approved platform fee revenue — shown only after fee policy and live source are approved
  • Operating expenditures — hosting, compliance, personnel, legal
  • Payment processing costs — pass-through, shown separately
  • CHIP's own fee lines — public only after the fee model is approved and real money is moving

Sample line (demo):

#00042 Platform fee revenue — Flagship Arcade, May volume $847.20
#00041 Payment processing sample costs, May $312.50
#00040 Infrastructure — AWS / database hosting, May $1,240.00

Current status: this is static demo data. CHIP's ledger goes live only when a real source of truth exists and the payment/legal boundary is approved. Until then, CHIP is not accepting live chip-ins.

View CHIP's Glass Ledger

We can't hide. That's the point.

Most platforms treat transparency as a liability — something to manage, minimize, bury in a PDF. CHIP treats it as the competitive advantage.

  • Trust is a product feature. A donor who can follow their money gives more and stays longer. The Glass Ledger makes trust structural, not rhetorical.
  • Transparency is a retention engine. A cause that publishes its expenditures earns player loyalty. The ledger is the proof.
  • Public accountability is the moat. Any competitor can copy the game mechanics. They can't copy the institutional commitment to publish everything. The ledger is the thing that cannot be faked.

Transparency has boundaries. Here are ours.

  • Not individual donor exposure. Player identities are never in the ledger. Aggregate amounts only.
  • Not real-time player tracking. The ledger tracks money, not people.
  • Not a surveillance tool. The ledger shows what money did. It doesn't show who gave it.
  • Not optional for creators. The Glass Ledger is default-public. A cause that wants to hide its expenditures is not a fit for CHIP.
  • Not a replacement for legal compliance. The ledger complements regulatory disclosures. It doesn't replace them. See Trust & Safety and Legal.

FAQ

Q: Can a creator edit or delete a ledger line?
A: No. The ledger is append-only. Corrections appear as new lines that reference the original. Nothing is ever removed.
Q: Does the Glass Ledger show individual donor names?
A: No. Never. Donor privacy is a structural commitment. The ledger shows aggregate amounts and line items only.
Q: Is CHIP's own ledger public?
A: Not yet. CHIP publishes this static demo contract first. A live CHIP ledger starts only after real payment, source-of-truth, and legal boundaries are approved.
Q: Can a cause opt out of the Glass Ledger?
A: No. The Glass Ledger is default-public for every arcade. It is a condition of using the platform.
Q: What if a cause miscategorizes an expenditure?
A: They add a correction line that references the original. Both lines remain visible. Transparency means showing the mistake and the fix, not hiding either.
Q: How is this different from a charity's public 990 filing?
A: A 990 is annual, aggregated, and backward-looking. The planned Glass Ledger is public, append-only, and line-item at the approved aggregate level. They serve different purposes. CHIP creators may still need to file 990s or campaign finance reports depending on their entity type.