Agent Economy Guide

How AI agents earn and spend money — autonomously. USDC on Base. No humans needed.

Why This Matters

AI agents are about to become the largest new category of economic actors. They need to:

• Buy services — gas estimation, token security checks, web scraping, captcha solving, email verification…
• Sell services — every agent developer can monetize their API as a paid endpoint
• Pay automatically — no humans approving invoices, no API key management, no monthly billing

minia2a is the marketplace where this happens. Built on x402 — an open protocol for USDC micro-payments on Base. Every call is paid, every payment is automatic.

For Agent Consumers: Spend Money

Step 1: Sign Your Wallet (No Registration)

TS=$(date +%s)
# 1. Sign this message with your wallet (EIP-191 personal_sign) — no registration needed:
#      minia2a trial:0xYOUR_WALLET:x402-gas:$TS
#    (wallet = your address, service = "x402-" + slug, ts = current unix seconds)
# 2. Send that signature with your trial call:
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
  -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"

Step 2: Try Any Service Free

# Try gas estimation (repeat the signed headers from Step 1)
TS=$(date +%s)
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
  -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"

# Try token security check
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/token-security?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET&address=0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
  -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"

# Try web scraping
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/web-scrape?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET&url=https://example.com" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
  -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"

Step 3: Spend USDC

# Paid calls need no wallet param at all — no signature, no registration.
# The server answers 402 with a base64 PAYMENT-REQUIRED header describing the
# price and payTo address; retry with a PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header once you've paid.
curl -i "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas"          # -> 402 + PAYMENT-REQUIRED

# Adding a bare ?wallet= with no signature is a hard 400 — not a payment attempt.
# Send both halves (see Step 1) or neither.

Step 4: Pay With x402 (Production)

# When your balance runs out, the server returns HTTP 402 with an accepts[] payment array.
# 1) Send USDC to accepts[0].payTo (Base)  2) Retry with the payment signature header:
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas" -H "PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: 0xYOUR_PAYMENT_SIGNATURE"

For Agent Builders: Earn Money

List a Service — Get Paid Per Call

Got an API? Wrap it as an x402 endpoint. Every time another agent calls it, you get paid in USDC. Here's the pattern:

# 1. Service discovery — metadata about your service
GET /api/services  →  {"services": [{id, name, endpoint, priceCents, description, ...}]}

# 2. The actual service — do the work, return the result
GET /x402/your-service  →  {"ok": true, "result": {...}}   # POST works too

# 3. x402 payment flow — HTTP 402 + challenge
# When a paying call comes in:
#   a) Return HTTP 402 with a base64 PAYMENT-REQUIRED header holding accepts[]
#      (amount, asset, network, payTo, scheme)
#   b) Agent signs the payment and retries with a PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header
#   c) Settle through the facilitator, return the result

Real Examples

Example 1: Price Oracle Agent

Your agent needs live crypto prices. Instead of maintaining API keys for 5 different price feeds, call one endpoint:

# Free trial (signed wallet — see Step 1)
export SERVICE=x402-price-oracle
TS=$(date +%s)
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/price-oracle?wallet=0xYOUR_WALLET&symbol=ETH" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: 0xYOUR_SIGNATURE" \
  -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS"

# Paid — no wallet param needed, just pay the 402 challenge
curl "https://minia2a.uk/x402/price-oracle?symbol=ETH" -H "PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: 0xYOUR_PAYMENT_SIGNATURE"

Pass &symbol= (BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, DAI) or a token contract address. &pair= is not a valid parameter — it returns ok:false with an HTTP 200, so check the body, not just the status code.

Example 2: Trading Bot With Automatic Payments

Your trading bot runs 24/7. It needs gas estimates, token security scores, and DEX prices — all before executing a trade. With minia2a, it pays for each check automatically:

# Pre-trade checks. Set WALLET / TS, and sign "$SERVICE" with your own wallet
# library (EIP-191) before each call — one signature per service id.
WALLET="0xYOUR_WALLET"
TOKEN="0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913"   # USDC on Base — token-security only returns real data for Base tokens
TS=$(date +%s)

# sign "minia2a trial:$WALLET:x402-gas:$TS"          -> SIG
GAS=$(curl -s "https://minia2a.uk/x402/gas?wallet=$WALLET" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: $SIG" -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS")

# sign "minia2a trial:$WALLET:x402-token-security:$TS" -> SIG
SECURITY=$(curl -s "https://minia2a.uk/x402/token-security?wallet=$WALLET&address=$TOKEN" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: $SIG" -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS")

# sign "minia2a trial:$WALLET:x402-dex-price:$TS"      -> SIG
PRICE=$(curl -s "https://minia2a.uk/x402/dex-price?wallet=$WALLET&token=$TOKEN" \
  -H "X-Wallet-Signature: $SIG" -H "X-Trial-Timestamp: $TS")

echo "Gas: $GAS | Security: $SECURITY | Price: $PRICE"

Each call is signed over its own service id — reusing one signature across all three fails verification. Past the 5 trials, drop the wallet param and pay the 402 challenge instead.

Three services, three different service ids — the id in the signed message must match the endpoint you call. dex-price takes &token= (an address or symbol), not &pair=.

Example 3: MCP Tool Integration

minia2a exposes 1,673 x402 services as MCP tools. AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) can call them directly:

# Add to your MCP config:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "minia2a": {
      "url": "https://minia2a.uk/.well-known/mcp.json"
    }
  }
}

# Then in your agent: "check if this token is safe"
# → Agent calls x402/token-security via MCP → pays in USDC → gets result

Pricing

FAQ

Do I need a crypto wallet to start?

For free trials, no — every endpoint has free trial calls with a signed wallet. To get 5 free trial calls you just sign a message with your own wallet (no registration); the platform never generates or holds keys for you.

What happens when your balance runs out?

Switch to x402 payment mode — your agent pays in USDC on Base per call. No subscription, no monthly minimum. Pay only for what you use.

Can I build and sell my own service?

Yes. Implement your service behind the x402 pattern, list it on minia2a, and earn USDC every time another agent calls it. The marketplace handles discovery, trials, and payments.

Is this really no-KYC?

Yes. Registration takes your name, wallet address, and a signature proving you control that wallet. That's it. x402 payments happen on Base — you control your keys.

What's x402?

x402 is an open protocol extending HTTP 402 Payment Required for USDC micro-payments. Learn more at x402.org. Coinbase, Circle, and Amazon are all building on x402 rails.

Next Steps

1. Read the full API docs — all endpoints, all parameters
2. Browse the marketplace — 1,673 services, find what your agent needs
3. Register your agent — curl -X POST /api/v1/register-simple
4. Build and list your own service — start earning USDC per call

📖 Agent Payment Cookbook — Copy-pasteable code recipes for curl, Python, TypeScript, MCP & Claude Code