v1.0 Now Live: Python SDK Support

The Economic Layer for
Autonomous Agents

Agents can't pass KYC. They can't hold bank accounts. SatGate gives them a Lightning Wallet and an L402 Gateway to buy data, API calls, and compute instantly—and route to the best provider based on price, latency, and availability.

Try Demo
hero_demo.py — Live Demo
⚡ Metered in sats

Watch an AI agent autonomously pay for API access in real-time.

Try it live in 15 seconds

Two Products in One

Use SatGate for either—or both.

Monetize APIs per request

Charge 1 sat per call—sub-cent pricing that's impossible on card rails. No minimums, no chargebacks, instant settlement.

Secure agent traffic

L402 tokens replace accounts and API keys. No PII, no credential stuffing. Paid capabilities for autonomous agents.

L402 is the access-control primitive; settlement rails can vary. Lightning now—others pluggable.

Where It Fits

Drop-in deployment. Minimal code changes.

Client / Agent
CDN / WAF
SatGate PEP
Your API

SatGate sits behind your CDN/WAF (volumetric protection) and in front of your API origin.

The Agent Era

Agents Route in Real Time. Humans Can't.

In the agent era, switching APIs isn't a two-week integration project. With MCP (Model Context Protocol) and agent tooling, providers publish price and health signals—agents route by policy, pay instantly, and get an L402 capability token.

This enables an API marketplace where providers compete per request.

Dynamic Pricing

Providers compete per call. If p95 latency spikes, degraded providers drop price to stay competitive. Agents optimize automatically.

Instant Failover

If one API is degraded, the agent switches on the next call. No human intervention, no downtime.

No Onboarding Drag

Pay-to-authorize replaces accounts and API keys for machine clients. Instant access, any provider.

AGENT DECISION LOOP

Get quotes (price, latency, uptime)
Select best provider
Pay → receive L402 token
Call API

If timeout/error → agent automatically retries with next provider. SatGate is the primitive that makes this possible.

LangChain Native

Plug-and-play 'Tool' for LangChain, AutoGPT, and CrewAI. Give your agent a wallet in 2 lines of code.

L402 Standard

Built on the open L402 protocol. No proprietary lock-in. Compatible with any Lightning Node.

Micropayments

Meter in sats per call. Sub-cent pricing that's uneconomical on card rails, trivial with SatGate.

Economic Friction for L7 Abuse

High-volume scraping becomes expensive. Use alongside your WAF/CDN for volumetric protection.

Internet-Native Access Control

SatGate implements L402 to turn payment into a capability token for APIs—ideal for stateless AI agents and zero-PII integrations.

Deep dive: Security architecture →

Identity-Based (Traditional)

"Prove who you are, then we decide what you can do."

  • • Requires user databases & PII
  • • OAuth flows, API keys, sessions
  • • Credential stuffing risks
  • • Agents can't sign up

Capability-Based (L402)

"Present a token that already encodes what you can do."

  • ✓ No accounts required
  • ✓ Payment-gated authorization
  • ✓ Zero PII, no credentials to steal
  • ✓ Perfect for autonomous agents

Edge Verification

Tokens verified cryptographically at the gateway. No centralized identity store needed. Usage accounting/quotas can be tracked without storing PII.

Least Privilege

Add caveats to constrain scope, time, and budget (e.g., "valid 5 mins", "max 10 calls").

Economic Friction

Spam becomes expensive and self-limiting. High-volume callers must continuously pay.

Zero Trust Access Control (PEP)

Enforces per-request authorization at the edge using cryptographically verifiable, least-privilege capability tokens—no network trust assumptions. Use alongside your existing WAF/CDN for volumetric protection.

How L402 Works

Three steps. No accounts. Instant access.

1
Request API
Client hits protected endpoint
2
402 + Invoice
Gateway returns Lightning invoice
3
Pay → Access
Pay invoice, get L402 token

L402 Token = Macaroon + Preimage

A bearer credential with embedded permissions (caveats) that proves payment. No centralized identity lookup required.

Universal Integration

from satgate.langchain import SatGateTool
from langchain.agents import initialize_agent

# 1. Give your agent a wallet
tools = [SatGateTool(wallet=my_lnd_node)]

# 2. Let it roam the economy
agent = initialize_agent(tools, llm, agent="openai-functions")
agent.run("Buy the latest stock report from AlphaVantage")