β minia2a Β· Blog
Here's the paradox of the agent economy: AI agents are best when autonomous β discovering APIs, negotiating prices, paying for what they need. But giving an agent access to your wallet? That's terrifying. What if it goes rogue? What if it drains your account on bad API calls?
This fear β rational and well-founded β is the single biggest barrier to agent adoption. And it's why we built the authorization envelope.
The authorization envelope is a simple idea: you set the rules, your agents operate within them. Think of it like giving your agent a prepaid debit card with a monthly cap. No per-transaction approvals. No gas fees to manage. No way for the agent to exceed what you've authorized.
π Three layers of control:
β You set the envelope β monthly cap, per-call max, revoke anytime. No long-term lock-in.
β‘ Your agents operate β they discover and pay for APIs in USDC, autonomously, within your limits.
β’ You stay in control β you own the wallet. You set the rules. Your agents carry the keys, not the decision rights.
And to prove it works? We give you 5 free trial calls. No KYC. No credit card. No crypto wallet required to start. That's 5 API calls your agent can make β gas prices, token security scans, wallet intel, web search, Polymarket data, time, DNS, and 165+ more services.
Here's the entire setup:
# Sign minia2a trial:<wallet>:<serviceId>:<unix_ts> with EIP-191, then send the
# wallet in the query string plus both headers:
TS=$(date +%s)
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET" \
-H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
-H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"
# https://minia2a.uk/register.html signs for you and prints this exact curl.Trials are wallet-based: any wallet you already hold gets 5 free calls, no registration and no new key material. Your agent can start calling APIs immediately.
curl https://minia2a.uk/api/v1/x402/gascurl https://minia2a.uk/api/v1/x402/token-security?address=0x...curl https://minia2a.uk/api/v1/x402/wallet-intel?address=0x.../api/services.Each call is paid in USDC (from ~$0.005). You get 5 free trial calls. When you run out, pay per call in USDC via x402. Pay as you go. No subscription. No minimum.
Every API call your agent makes goes through the x402 payment protocol. The flow:
Agent β API Request β HTTP 402 Payment Required β Pay in USDC β Get ResultThe key detail: your agent pays with its own wallet, not yours. The wallet is pre-funded by you, capped by you, and revocable by you. But the agent holds the key and makes the spending decisions β within the envelope you set.
This is fundamentally different from:
β’ API keys (no payment, no business model for API providers)
β’ Monthly subscriptions (too coarse, pay for unused capacity)
β’ Shared wallets (no spending controls, full trust required)
The agent economy has a cold-start problem: API providers won't list until agents can pay. Agents can't pay until they have infrastructure. Infrastructure won't exist until there's demand.
5 free trial calls breaks this loop. It gives developers a zero-risk way to:
β’ Test the x402 payment protocol in production
β’ See real agent-to-API payment flows
β’ Build confidence before adding real funds
β’ Experience the authorization envelope model firsthand
The credits are real USDC on Base L2 β not testnet tokens, not sandbox credits. Your agent is making actual payments on a real blockchain, from the first call.
The marketplace already has 173 services across categories:
Every one of these services accepts x402 payments. Your agent discovers them, calls them, and pays for them β all without you lifting a finger after the initial setup.
The authorization envelope model is the missing piece that makes agent autonomy practical. You fund. You cap. You revoke anytime. Your agent operates. The 5 free trial calls let you prove it to yourself before committing a single cent.
π» Start with Zero β Fund Your Agent, Get 5 Free Trials β
ιΆε θ΅·ζ₯οΌδΈη¨θ±ι±γNo KYC. No credit card. No crypto required to start.