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.

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.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:50 — L402, x402, and MPP

01:09 — What HTTP 402 Actually Is

02:41 — Meet x402 in the Middle

03:44 — Facilitators and Coinbase Default

06:06 — x402 Standard vs Coinbase Commerce

07:26 — Stables Dominate Early Volume

08:03 — Agentic Payments Still Near Zero

08:55 — Agents Already Know Bitcoin

12:05 — Personal Agents vs B2B Agents

13:03 — Pay-Per-Query Agent Wallets

16:14 — Businesses on Bitcoin Are Easier

16:39 — AI Climb and Builder Craft

22:29 — Won't Fund OpenAI — Still Uses Them

25:38 — Cost Deflation = Human Freedom

28:57 — Best AI tools as of Oct 2

31:16 — Terminal Bench and Real Evals

32:25 — Bench Maxing vs Real Feel

34:59 — Four Years From ChatGPT

36:56 — Quantization Without the LARPs

39:51 — Mesh Alliance and Mesh LLM

42:37 — Goose, LDK, Think Big

Links:

https://x.com/benthecarman
https://x.com/spiral_xyz

Stephan Livera links:

Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
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Lightning in x402 and Agent Payments | Ben Carman SLP779

Stephan Livera Podcast

Lightning in x402 and Agent Payments | Ben Carman SLP779