bolthub

The bolthub API marketplace, L402 gateways, and your other MCP servers, on one Lightning budget.

bolthub is an MCP server that places the bolthub API marketplace, L402-gated services, and other MCP servers behind a single Lightning Network budget. It is configured through environment variables that cover three distinct Lightning wallet backends: LND (via REST host and macaroon), Nostr Wallet Connect (via a URI), LNbits (via URL and admin key), and phoenixd (via URL and password). A spending cap in satoshis is set with BUDGET_SATS, and a bolthub-specific auth token is provided via BOLTHUB_AUTH_TOKEN. This lets an agent make paid API calls to L402-protected endpoints without managing per-service credentials or manually handling Lightning invoices for each request. The server communicates over stdio transport and is distributed as an npm package. Because the tool list exposed to agents is determined at runtime by the configured backends and marketplace services, the exact capabilities available depend on which wallet backend and which bolthub marketplace APIs are activated in a given deployment. The primary value is unified payment accounting: multiple paid API services and MCP servers share one Lightning budget rather than requiring separate payment channels or credential sets for each.

Use cases

  • Route agent API calls through L402-gated endpoints using a single Lightning wallet
  • Cap total AI agent spending on paid APIs with a satoshi budget limit
  • Connect an LND node as the payment backend for automated API purchases
  • Use LNbits or phoenixd as a lightweight wallet backend for agent-driven marketplace calls
  • Integrate bolthub marketplace services into an existing MCP server stack without separate auth per service

When to use it

  • The agent needs to consume L402-gated or Lightning-paid APIs and you want centralized budget control
  • You are running multiple MCP servers that each incur per-call costs and want a single spending ledger
  • You already operate an LND node, LNbits instance, phoenixd, or have a Nostr Wallet Connect URI available
  • You want to access bolthub marketplace APIs from an AI agent without building custom payment logic

When not to use it

  • No Lightning wallet backend is available — all four backends require separate infrastructure to set up
  • The use case does not involve paid or L402-protected APIs and needs only free data sources
  • A non-stdio transport (HTTP, SSE, WebSocket) is required, as only stdio is supported
  • The exposed tool surface needs to be known ahead of deployment — no tools are statically declared in this version