Crypto Micropayments for AI APIs
Traditional payment processors charge 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. For a $0.01 API call, that's a 30x fee. Crypto on Base L2 costs $0.0001 per transaction β 3000x cheaper.
The x402 Protocol
- Client sends request without payment
- Server responds with HTTP 402 + payment details (address, amount, chain)
- Client sends payment on-chain and resubmits with tx hash
- Server verifies tx, processes request, returns result
Why Base?
- Gas fees: $0.0001 per transaction
- USDC: Native stablecoin support
- Speed: 2-second block times
- Coinbase-backed infrastructure
Pricing Models
| Service | Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Text summarization | $0.001 | per request |
| Code review | $0.005 | per request |
| Entity extraction | $0.002 | per 1K tokens |
| Sentiment analysis | $0.001 | per request |
Revenue Projection
At 1,000 requests/day Γ $0.002 avg = $2/day = $730/year passive income.
Crypto micropayments unlock a business model impossible with traditional payments: charging fractions of a cent per API call.
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