Terms of Service

Last Updated: August 21, 2026

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1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, accessing, or using pauv.com (the “Platform”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (“Terms”). These Terms constitute a legal agreement between you and Pauv Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Austin, Texas. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Platform.

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2. Eligibility

• General Users (Traders): You must be at least 18 years old. The Platform is available in 150+ countries.
• No Minors. The Platform does not list NPSI profiles for individuals under 18. Only adult public figures are indexed.

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3. Nature of the Platform

Pauv is the world’s first real-time index of public sentiment. The Platform hosts the Net Public Sentiment Index (NPSI), a live, dollar-denominated measure of a public figure’s cultural relevance, shaped entirely by trading activity on the Platform.

• Not an exchange. Pauv is not a stock exchange, securities exchange, commodities exchange, prediction market, or a bank.
• Not a financial instrument. An NPSI is a derived data product, similar to a bond rating or credit score. Trades opened on an NPSI do not represent ownership, equity, debt, profit participation, voting rights, rights to services, or any claim on any person or enterprise.
• Signal market. Pauv occupies a category it calls the signal market, distinct from prediction markets (binary settlement) and securities markets (ownership).

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4. Beta Status

The Platform is currently in beta while we ensure the stability of our pricing engine. Features may change, and bugs may occur. Any confirmed balance error is corrected as described in the Refund Policy.

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5. Trades and VBC 4.1

• Trades. A trade is a directional position on an NPSI expressed through Pauv’s proprietary pricing engine, VBC 4.1, a single-curve bonding model with a softplus price floor. A long trade pulls the NPSI up; an escrow-backed short trade pulls it down. Token supply is variable and minted on the curve; there is no fixed or pre-minted per-profile inventory.
• Short liquidation. Shorts are fully collateralized by an on-platform escrow equal to twice the user’s net stake. A short is automatically closed if the cost to buy back its tokens reaches 95% of the position’s escrow; at that point, whatever remains of the escrow after the buy-back is returned to the user. A user cannot lose more than the net stake committed to a short, but may lose nearly all of it in a sharp adverse move of the NPSI.
• No counterparty matching. All trades settle instantly against VBC 4.1. There is no order book, no bid/ask, no secondary market, and no user-to-user matching.
• No ownership. Opening a trade does not give you ownership of the NPSI, the public figure, or any enterprise. The NPSI is a signal, not an asset.
• No borrowing; no leverage. Shorts do not borrow tokens or funds from other users. Both legs of the escrow originate from the user’s net stake and capital extracted from the curve itself. Pauv does not offer margin, lending, or leveraged trades.
• Internal positions. VBC 4.1 uses internal token accounting, but users do not directly interact with tokens. Positions are platform records; they are not cryptocurrency, not transferable, and have no value outside the Platform.
• Algorithmic pricing. NPSI values are determined by trading activity through the published VBC 4.1 algorithm. A new profile’s starting value is priced from public signal data (Google Trends, Instagram follower counts, and other social metrics), then anchored against existing profiles trading in a similar price range; from there the market self-corrects.

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6. Funds, Deposits, and Withdrawals

• Balance. Your “balance” is an internal ledger entry displayed in U.S. dollars, credited 1:1 with your deposits. It cannot be transferred to other users, but you may withdraw it at any time.
• Funding. Deposits are made through our payment partner, Glide, and credited to your balance in U.S. dollars.
• Withdrawals. You may request a withdrawal of your balance at any time. Withdrawals are normally processed promptly and automatically, but may be delayed, held, or declined pending identity verification, sanctions screening, or compliance review as described in Section 7. No funds are released while a compliance review is open.
• No transfers. You may not sell, gift, transfer, or trade your balance or open positions to other users directly. Peer-to-peer transfers are strictly disabled.

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7. Account Registration & Security

• Account creation. You must provide a name and an email address to create an account.
• Security. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account.
• Monitoring. We reserve the right to suspend accounts, delay withdrawals, or terminate access for activity that is harmful to other users, to the integrity of the NPSI, or to the Platform.
• Compliance and verification. Pauv is a FinCEN-registered Money Services Business. To comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, OFAC sanctions programs, and the requirements of our payment partners, we may at any time require you to verify your identity, confirm ownership of a funding source or wallet, or provide information about the source of your funds before permitting further activity or releasing a withdrawal. We screen users and wallet addresses against sanctions lists and block access from prohibited jurisdictions, including through proxy and VPN detection. Accounts that fail verification or screening may be restricted, frozen, or terminated, and we may be required by law to report certain activity to government authorities without notifying you.

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8. Fees

• Standard fee. Every trade (open or close) incurs a fee of 0.25% on the gross cash amount. The same rate applies to the residual escrow returned on a closed or liquidated short.
• Fee isolation. Fees are collected into a separate treasury ledger and do not enter the bonding curve. Fees do not affect the NPSI value or pricing math.

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9. Profile Claims

• Claim flow. Every NPSI profile includes a “Claim Your Profile” feature. A public figure whose claim is approved by Pauv receives a share of the trading activity on that profile from the point of approval going forward.
• No endorsement. Claiming a profile does not constitute endorsement of, affiliation with, or authorization of Pauv, and does not grant Pauv any rights to the Name, Image, or Likeness of the public figure.

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10. Listings

Listings on the Platform are approval-gated. Users may suggest a public figure for listing; Pauv reviews and decides whether to list. Pauv does not list private individuals or individuals under 18.

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11. Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to:

• Use the Platform to facilitate any illegal activity.
• Use bots, spiders, or automated scripts to interact with the Platform.
• Engage in coordinated schemes intended to manipulate an NPSI value (including but not limited to wash trading or rapid round-trip trading designed to manipulate fee or price outcomes).
• Attempt to transfer your balance or open positions outside of the Platform.
• Represent any public figure’s NPSI as an investment, security, or endorsement.

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12. Risk Disclosure & Disclaimers

YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT OPENING AND CLOSING TRADES ON PAUV CARRIES RISK OF LOSS.

• Not an investment. Pauv does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
• NPSI movement. The NPSI can move sharply in either direction based on trading activity. You can lose some or all of the funds committed to a trade.
• Automatic liquidation of shorts. A short is automatically closed when the cost to buy back its tokens reaches 95% of the position’s escrow. You acknowledge that a sharp upward move of the NPSI can trigger this liquidation with no advance notice; whatever remains of the escrow after the buy-back is returned, which may be only a small remainder of the net stake committed to that short.
• Beta software. The Platform is in beta. You acknowledge that bugs in the pricing engine could in principle cause incorrect balance calculations; any confirmed error is corrected as described in the Refund Policy.
• “As is” service. The Platform is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind.

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13. Public-Domain Framing and Non-Endorsement

• NPSI derives from public sentiment. NPSI profiles exist because public sentiment about a cultural figure is in the public domain. Listing an NPSI does not require consent from the indexed individual, and the Platform expressly does not claim to use any public figure’s Name, Image, or Likeness.
• Non-endorsement notice. Every NPSI profile displays a conspicuous disclaimer: “[Name] is not affiliated with Pauv and has not endorsed, sponsored, or authorized this NPSI listing. All imagery is copyright-free or AI-generated.”

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14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Pauv Inc. shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits or revenues. Pauv’s aggregate liability shall not exceed the amount you paid to Pauv in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim.

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15. Termination

Pauv reserves the right to suspend or terminate your account at our sole discretion, without notice, for conduct that violates these Terms or is harmful to other users or to the integrity of the NPSI.

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16. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas. Any dispute shall be resolved by binding arbitration in Austin, Texas. You waive your right to participate in a class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration.