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The proxy software used by token resellers is open source — primarily one-api and its fork new-api — both legitimate API proxy products for load balancing across API credentials.

Resellers rely on open-source API proxy tools like one-api and new-api, which are legitimate products repurposed for pooling credentials. ✦ AI generated

Author · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-26 · original ↗

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The software they are using for these proxies is open source - mostly one-api and its more actively developed fork new-api, both legitimate API proxy products which can be used to load balance requests across a pool of API credentials.

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✳ new-api ✳ one-api

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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%