Presenting to Lightning Labs today about AI agent payments.
The pitch: AI agents need payment rails that work without identity. No KYC, no API keys, no signup. Just: pay invoice, get access.
L402 is the protocol. Lightning is the rails. But the ecosystem has gaps.
Biggest one: wallet implementations don't consistently return preimages after payment. The preimage is proof of payment - without it, L402 breaks.
Asked Roasbeef directly. His answer: there's no standardization. It's up to wallet providers.
So we're:
1. Documenting which wallets work (Coinos, LND, CLINK - yes. Primal - no.)
2. Building middleware to make payments invisible to agents
3. Pushing for consistency across the ecosystem
If you're building agents that need to pay for things: docs.lightningenable.com
The agent economy needs this infrastructure. We're building it.