Show HN: Argentic – An L402 Lightning toll booth for AI scraping agents

# ARGENTIC.NETWORK — Lightning Toll Booth for AI Agents Source: [https://argentic.network/](https://argentic.network/) ▶ SYSTEM ONLINE // TOLL BOOTH ACTIVE Lightning Infrastructure for AI Agents The internet's first**machine\-native toll booth**\. AI agents pay in Bitcoin Lightning to access the open web\. No accounts\. No API keys\. No friction\. Just**sats and passage**— at the speed of light\. <40 Millisecond settlement // Protocol ## How Agents Pay 01 Request Agent hits argentic\.network with any request\. Toll booth intercepts it\. 02 Invoice Server returns HTTP 402 with a Lightning invoice for 10 sats \(~$0\.001\)\. 03 Pay Agent pays the invoice automatically via Lightning Network\. Settlement in milliseconds\. 04 Access Agent receives a session token valid for 1 hour\. Include it in all future requests\. 05 Pass All requests with valid token are forwarded through\. No friction\. No delays\. // Integration ## Agent Code Examples Step 1 — Request access \(get invoice\) ``` response = requests.get("https://argentic.network/?url=https://target-site.com") data = response.json() invoice = data["invoice"] payment_hash = data["payment_hash"] ``` Step 2 — Pay invoice via your Lightning node ``` pay_response = requests.post( "http://your-lightning-node/pay", data={"invoice": invoice} ) ``` Step 3 — Poll for token after payment ``` token_response = requests.get( "https://argentic.network/", headers={"X-Payment-Hash": payment_hash} ) token = token_response.json()["token"] ``` Step 4 — Use token for all subsequent requests ``` result = requests.get( "https://argentic.network/?url=https://target-site.com", headers={"X-Lightning-Token": token} ) data = result.json() ``` // Economics ## Pricing 10 Satoshis per session ~$0\.001 USD at current rates\. One payment buys 1 hour of unrestricted access\. No subscriptions\. No accounts\. Pay and go\. Designed for machine\-to\-machine payments\. So cheap no agent will refuse it\. So fast no agent will notice it\. The path of least resistance through the internet\.