Originally reported November 13, 2026. PANews, citing Crypto Briefing, reported that Lightning Labs released the open-source pi402 extension on November 12. Built for the Pi coding agent, it lets an agent pay its own inference costs in bitcoin over the Lightning Network.
The reported workflow is: the agent encounters a price, pays an invoice, then resumes work. According to the report, this requires no account registration, API key or credit card. Pi402 uses the L402 protocol, pairing an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response with a Lightning invoice. The report describes billing by token, so payment tracks actual usage.
Sellers can accept payments using Aperture and Lightmeter. PANews reports that neither buyer nor seller needs to run a Lightning node; an Ark-based Wavelength wallet handles the payment.