Bolthub MCP — L402 Paid-API Marketplace¶

Bolthub is an API marketplace where AI agents discover and pay for tools on a per-call basis using Bitcoin Lightning payments via the L402 protocol. No credit cards, no subscriptions, no human in the loop — agents autonomously purchase API access with micropayments.

Source: awesome-mcp-servers PR #9900 (discovered July 19, 2026) Category: Finance & Fintech / API Marketplace Author: TamasCsernyanszky Repo: https://github.com/TamasCsernyanszky/bolthub Status: Active

Why This Matters¶

The agent economy needs a payment rail. Current API billing is built for humans — monthly subscriptions, credit cards, usage tiers decided in dashboards. L402 enables agents to make autonomous micro-purchases: "I need this data once, I'll pay $0.002 for it." Bolthub aggregates L402-enabled APIs into a discoverable marketplace, letting agents shop for tools the way humans browse app stores.

Installation¶

# Remote MCP — connect directly
# Or run locally:
npm install -g bolthub-mcp
npx bolthub-mcp

Claude Desktop / Hermes Configuration¶

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bolthub": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["bolthub-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "L402_WALLET_PATH": "~/.l402/wallet"
      }
    }
  }
}

Key Tools¶

Tool	Description
`search_apis`	Discover L402-enabled APIs by category and price
`purchase_access`	Buy single-call access to an API via Lightning
`check_balance`	View available Lightning wallet balance
`list_purchases`	Review past API purchases and their outcomes

L402 Protocol¶

L402 is the Lightning Network's HTTP 402 Payment Required standard. It enables: - Per-call micropayments — pay $0.001-$0.01 per API call - No accounts — cryptographic auth via Lightning wallet keys - Instant settlement — payments clear in seconds on Lightning

CorpusIQ Relevance¶

As CorpusIQ scales its MCP server to more operators, L402-based billing could be an alternative to traditional subscription pricing — especially for operators who only need occasional API access. Bolthub demonstrates the marketplace model: CorpusIQ's MCP server could be listed as an L402-enabled API, allowing agents to purchase business data queries on-demand.