Bitcoin only · Lightning budgets for agents

Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) for AI agents

NWC lets an agent ask a Lightning wallet to pay an invoice without ever holding the wallet keys. A person creates one connection with permissions and a budget, then the agent spends inside that budget. Every count below is computed from our checked wallet data as of 2026-10-24.

What NWC is

Nostr Wallet Connect, or NWC, is specified as NIP-47. The agent holds a connection secret, not a seed phrase. It sends a request to the wallet through a Nostr relay, the wallet checks the permissions and budget, and the wallet pays.

For an agent, the useful part is the budget. A single connection can be limited to paying invoices, capped per day or per month, and revoked without moving the funds to a new wallet.

How an agent gets a budget

1. 1Pick an NWC wallet

   In our leaderboard, 40 of 204 wallets carry the nwc rail. The largest groups: 9 Wallet interface (NWC) · 8 AI / automation tool (NWC) · 4 MCP server with wallet/payment tools · 4 LLM purchase with ecash/Lightning.

   All 40 NWC wallets →

2. 2Create one connection

   The wallet issues a connection string (a nostr+walletconnect URI) with the methods the agent may call. Give the agent that string, not the wallet seed. The wallet keeps the keys.

3. 3Set the budget

   16 of 40 NWC wallets have a spend-controls quote we could verify. Alby Account says: “Define app permissions and set daily, weekly, monthly or yearly budgets for the apps you connect to. Your lightning address Get a simple, custom, email-like address to receive bitcoin instantly”

   source: www.getalby.com

4. 4Point it at a paywall

   The agent can pay any BOLT11 invoice inside its budget. That includes the 132 live L402 APIs in our index, which answer HTTP 402 with a Lightning invoice.

   25 cheapest L402 APIs → · free 21 test sat sandbox →

If a wallet has no spend-controls quote in our data, the leaderboard shows that feature as unverified. That is not proof the wallet has no limits.

NWC wallets by verified agent features

Top 15 of 40 NWC wallets by score out of 7. The score counts features we could verify on the wallet’s own pages, not the size of its budget.

• nostrpulse-full · score 6 / 7 · MCP server with wallet/payment tools lightningecashnwconchain
• bolthub-sdk · score 5 / 7 · MCP server with wallet/payment tools lightningnwcx402
• leashd · score 5 / 7 · LLM purchase with ecash/Lightning lightningecashnwcx402stablecoinonchain
• lightning-enable-mcp · score 5 / 7 · MCP server with wallet/payment tools lightningnwcx402onchain
• Minibits · score 5 / 7 · NWC-compatible wallet lightningecashnwconchain
• 402-mcp · score 4 / 7 · LLM purchase with ecash/Lightning lightningecashnwcx402
• Alby Account · score 4 / 7 · Wallet interface (NWC) lightningnwcx402onchain
• Alby Bitcoin Payments MCP · score 4 / 7 · AI / automation tool (NWC) lightningnwcx402onchain
• Alby Browser Extension · score 4 / 7 · Wallet interface (NWC) lightningnwcx402onchain
• mcp · score 4 / 7 · MCP server with wallet/payment tools lightningnwconchain
• Alby CLI · score 3 / 7 · Wallet interface (NWC) lightningnwcstablecoinonchain
• Blitz · score 3 / 7 · Cashu on-chain/Lightning wallet lightningnwcstablecoinonchain
• Buho · score 3 / 7 · NWC-compatible wallet lightningnwconchain
• BuhoGO · score 3 / 7 · Wallet interface (NWC) lightningnwconchain
• LDK, LND, Cashu, Phoenixd · score 3 / 7 · Lightning backend with NWC lightningecashnwconchain

All 40 NWC wallets → · Full 204-wallet leaderboard →

Spend-control quotes from our data

16 NWC wallets have a saved quote about budgets or spend limits. Four of them:

• nostrpulse-full

  “bootstraps local keys. | | `get_spending_guardrails` | **Budget Gatekeeper** | Query current AI agent spending guardrails, daily budget (500 sats rolling), 24h satoshis spent, remaining”

  source: raw.githubusercontent.com/PHONGUIT22/nostrpulse-full/HEAD/README.md
• bolthub-sdk

  “tool or HTTP endpoint (`createPaywall`), pay for tools within a budget (`ToolClient` for MCP, `L402Client` for HTTP), wallet adapters (LND, LNbits, Phoenixd, NWC, WebLN); rails: L402, facilitator.”

  source: raw.githubusercontent.com/signaltech-org/bolthub-sdk/HEAD/README.md
• leashd

  “the leash. Non-custodial spend governance for AI agents. Hard budgets, allowlists, rate limits, time windows, graded shutdown, signed audit trail. Lightning (NWC), Cashu and x402/USDC on Base and”

  source: raw.githubusercontent.com/brainbytes-dev/leashd/HEAD/README.md
• lightning-enable-mcp

  “participate in agent-to-agent commerce. Wallet, invoice, L402, budget, and API-discovery tools work out of the box with just a wallet. Producer tools (sell access via L402) and Agent Service”

  source: raw.githubusercontent.com/refined-element/lightning-enable-mcp/HEAD/README.md

What an NWC budget can pay

• L402 APIs: 132 live endpoints. The agent pays the Lightning invoice and retries with the proof. The cheapest costs 1 sat per call. Browse all L402 APIs →
• Payment services at YES with the nwc rail: 1 of 1. Alby MCP (Nostr Wallet Connect)
• MCP servers: 0 of 75 servers in /mcp tag the nwc rail. The NWC tools we found sit mainly on the wallet side, for example the MCP wallet tools in the list above. Browse MCP servers →
• On-chain merchants: NWC pays Lightning invoices. It does not make an on-chain checkout agent-ready. For that, see Bitcoin merchants an agent can pay.

Where NWC stops

• A connection secret is a spending credential. Anyone who has it can spend inside its budget. Treat it like a password and revoke it when the agent is done.
• Budgets are enforced by the wallet, not by the agent. One bridge in our data says per-connection budgets are best-effort and cannot account for routing fees. Check the wallet’s own limits before you hand over a connection.
• NWC does not create invoices. A merchant or a paywall still has to issue the Lightning invoice the agent pays.
• 14 wallets mention NWC somewhere in their saved data but are not tagged with the nwc rail. We count them separately instead of adding them to the NWC list.

Where this fits in Bitcoin for agents

NWC is one of the four routes on our Bitcoin answer page, next to L402, on-chain Bitcoin and Cashu ecash. Read that first if you are choosing a rail.

Can AI agents pay with Bitcoin? → · Lightning for agents →

Data as of 2026-10-24. How we check: /method.