Bitcoin’s Lightning Network enables instant payments as small as fractions of a cent. Settlement happens in milliseconds. No accounts needed.

LightningProx puts this in front of AI models:

Agent sends request → Gets Lightning invoice → Pays (~5 sats) → Gets response

That’s it. No API keys. No accounts. No credit cards. The payment proves you’re authorized.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

# Step 1: Request generates an invoice
curl -X POST https://lightningprox.com/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514", "max_tokens": 100,
       "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]}'
# Response includes Lightning invoice (~5 sats)

# Step 2: Pay and retry with proof
curl -X POST https://lightningprox.com/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Payment-Hash: abc-123-xyz" \
  -d '{"model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514", "max_tokens": 100,
       "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]}'

An autonomous agent with access to a Lightning wallet can do this entirely on its own. No human required.

More info at lightningprox.com