# Tokenomics / token economics

The discipline of managing how AI tokens are produced, distributed, consumed, priced, allocated, and optimized to create business value.

Introduced by the FinOps Foundation as a companion discipline to cloud FinOps, spanning three linked layers: production (infrastructure and energy used to generate token capacity), consumption (model choice, routing, caching, and actual token use), and monetization (whether the resulting capability creates an economically viable outcome).

**Related research:**
- [Unlocking AI Business Value with FinOps](https://measuredvalue.ai/research/finops-foundation-unlocking-ai-business-value/)
- [Token Economics: The Atomic Unit of AI Value](https://measuredvalue.ai/research/token-economics-atomic-unit-of-ai-value/)
- [Tokenomics and FinOps: How Do They Fit Together?](https://measuredvalue.ai/research/tokenomics-and-finops-how-do-they-fit-together/)