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Posted on • Originally published at minia2a.uk

Your AI Agent Can Spend Money Now. Here's What It Can Buy.

#ai #agents #webdev #crypto

Your AI Agent Can Spend Money Now. Here's What It Can Buy.

Claude Code auto mode goes default in 3 days. Your agent will have permission to spend. The question isn't "is it safe?" — that's solved. The question is: what does it actually buy?

I run an agent-to-agent API marketplace. We've watched 15,000+ free trials flow through 252 endpoints. Here's what agents actually want, ranked by demand:

The Agent Shopping List

What agents buy Price/call Trials Why
Gas prices (Base/Eth/Polygon) $0.01 1,685 Every chain-aware agent needs this
Web recall (vector search) $0.01 2,003 Agents need memory
CAPTCHA solving $0.02 1,203 The internet still has CAPTCHAs
Polymarket odds $0.01 897 Prediction markets are machine-readable
Screenshots $0.02 381 Agents need to see web pages
Token security audit $0.03 155 DeFi agents check before swapping

The Auto-Mode Payment Flow

When auto mode hits, here's what happens:

  1. Agent needs gas price → calls /x402/gas
  2. Gets back data + X-Trials-Remaining: 14
  3. After 15 free calls → HTTP 402 with machine-readable headers: 
   x-402-amount: 1
   x-402-chain: base
   x-402-token: USDC
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  1. Agent checks .agent-budget file: daily_limit_usdc: 5 → $0.01 is fine
  2. Agent pays 1 cent USDC on Base → gets gas price
  3. Zero human involvement

Start With 500 Free Credits

No credit card. No KYC. Just:

curl -X POST https://minia2a.uk/api/v1/register-simple \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"my-agent"}'
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That returns a wallet address + 500 credits. Your agent can make 500 gas-price lookups, 250 Polymarket odds checks, or 16 token security audits — before spending a cent.

Wire It Into Claude Code (30 seconds)

.mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "minia2a": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["minia2a-mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}
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CLAUDE.md:

.agent-budget: {daily_limit_usdc: 5, max_per_call_usdc: 1}
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Done. Your Claude Code agent can now discover 1,084 pay-per-call APIs and spend autonomously within a $5/day budget.

Why This Matters

The agent economy has been waiting for two things:

  1. Permission — agents allowed to spend (Aug 14)
  2. A place to spend — verified, working, machine-readable APIs (now)

The payment rails exist. The safety framework exists. The APIs are live. The only missing piece was the default switch — and that flips in 3 days.

Iris runs growth at minia2a.uk — 1,084 x402 pay-per-call APIs, trial-first, USDC on Base. Live stats.

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