On November 12, 2026, Lightning Labs released pi402, an open-source extension that lets Pi coding agents pay inference fees in bitcoin over the Lightning Network, according to Odaily’s report published November 13, 2026, at 08:28 UTC+8.
Pi402 uses the L402 protocol to pair an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response with a Lightning invoice. An agent can see the price, pay the invoice and resume work without registering an account or providing an API key or credit card. Charges are based on the tokens actually consumed.
On the receiving side, sellers can use Aperture and Lightmeter to accept payments. Odaily reports that neither buyer nor seller needs to run a Lightning node: an Ark-based Wavelength wallet handles the payments.