Lightning Labs released pi402, an open-source extension for the Pi coding agent, on November 12, according to a ChainCatcher report citing Crypto Briefing. It lets an agent pay for its own inference with Bitcoin over the Lightning Network.
The payment flow is designed to avoid account registration, API keys and credit cards. When the agent encounters a price, it pays a Lightning invoice and can resume work. Pi402 uses the L402 protocol, which pairs an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response with a Lightning invoice. Charges can be based on the tokens the agent actually uses.
Sellers can accept payments through Aperture and Lightmeter. Neither the buyer nor the seller needs to run a Lightning node; an Ark-based Wavelength wallet handles payments. The reported demonstration prices were approximately $0.375 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens—not stated as universal rates.
Original report: ChainCatcher, published November 13, 2026, at 08:27 (UTC+8).