Lightning Labs launches pi402 so AI agents can buy inference with Bitcoin

The open-source Pi extension lets coding agents pay per token over Lightning, with no accounts, API keys, or cards involved Lightning Labs has released pi402, an open-source extension that lets AI coding agents pay for their own inference in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. There is no account signup, no API key, and no credit card. The agent sees a price, pays the invoice, and gets back to work. The tool was unveiled on November 12, 2026, and is built for the Pi coding agent. It targets a specific and growing problem. Software agents increasingly need to buy compute, but nearly every compute vendor still assumes a human is holding the wallet. The engine underneath pi402 is L402, a protocol Lightning Labs has been developing for some time.

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