Lightning Labs Releases Toolkit Enabling AI Agents to Use Bitcoin for Payments

February 15th, according to Bitcoin News, Lightning Labs has officially released an open-source toolkit that allows AI agents to autonomously send and receive Bitcoin payments via the Bitcoin Lightning Network without the need for human approval, accounts, login credentials, or API keys.The toolkit uses the L402 protocol, based on the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" standard. Websites can send Lightning Network invoices to AI agents, who, upon payment, receive a digital payment credential as an access key to unlock services or data. The toolkit also includes the 'lnget' tool, which can automatically process paywalled content access requests in the background. Furthermore, the toolkit supports AI running Lightning nodes, managing permissions, hosting paid services, facilitating inter-agent transactions, and includes built-in spending limits and remote signature protection.