Lightning in x402 and Agent Payments | Ben Carman SLP779

<p>Bitcoiners built L402 for a Lightning-native web. Crypto built x402 for agents — and early volume is mostly stables. Ben Carman helped get Lightning into the x402 standard, and argues the pragmatic move is to meet that stack in the middle rather than wait for L402 alone.</p><p>Ben Carman of Spiral rejoin me to unpack HTTP 402 Payment Required, facilitators versus Coinbase Commerce, why agentic payments are still near zero today, and why AI agents may adopt Bitcoin faster than humans — because models already know sats, invoices, and QR codes.</p><p>Timestamps:</p><p>00:00 — Intro</p><p>00:50 — L402, x402, and MPP</p><p>01:09 — What HTTP 402 Actually Is</p><p>02:41 — Meet x402 in the Middle</p><p>03:44 — Facilitators and Coinbase Default</p><p>06:06 — x402 Standard vs Coinbase Commerce</p><p>07:26 — Stables Dominate Early Volume</p><p>08:03 — Agentic Payments Still Near Zero</p><p>08:55 — Agents Already Know Bitcoin</p><p>12:05 — Personal Agents vs B2B Agents</p><p>13:03 — Pay-Per-Query Agent Wallets</p><p>16:14 — Businesses on Bitcoin Are Easier</p><p>16:39 — AI Climb and Builder Craft</p><p>22:29 — Won&#39;t Fund OpenAI — Still Uses Them</p><p>25:38 — Cost Deflation = Human Freedom</p><p>28:57 — Best AI tools as of Oct 2</p><p>31:16 — Terminal Bench and Real Evals</p><p>32:25 — Bench Maxing vs Real Feel</p><p>34:59 — Four Years From ChatGPT</p><p>36:56 — Quantization Without the LARPs</p><p>39:51 — Mesh Alliance and Mesh LLM</p><p>42:37 — Goose, LDK, Think Big</p><p>Links: </p><ul><li><p><a href="https://x.com/benthecarman"><u>https://x.com/benthecarman</u></a></p></li><li><p>https://x.com/spiral_xyz</p></li></ul><p>Stephan Livera links:</p><ul><li><p>Follow me on X: @stephanlivera</p></li><li><p>Subscribe to the podcast</p></li><li><p>Subscribe to Substack</p></li></ul>