DataArticle
Buyers in this market seek cheap tokens, want to bypass geo-restrictions, and in some cases collect data for model distillation.
Customers of token resellers are motivated by cost savings, circumventing geographic blocks, and gathering training data for model distillation. ✦ AI generated
Author · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-26 · original ↗
The buyers are seeking cheap tokens, avoiding geo-restrictions, and in some cases collecting data for model distillation.
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A secondary market for reselling LLM tokens at a discount has grown up around pooling API keys from various sources.Author · Simon Willison's Weblog · conf 80%Resellers achieve significant discounts on LLM API pricing by abusing free trials, proxying through unprotected support bots, and using stolen credit cards or chargeback attacks, mostly operating in China.Author · Simon Willison's Weblog · conf 80%