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Happy Friday!
You may have seen the term “agentic payments” flitting around the twitter-sphere. Maybe yet another tech buzzword makes you dyspeptic, maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about, or maybe you know what an agentic payment is but don’t know how to make one.
Whatever you are, today’s newsletter will show you how to use AI and BTC to do your biding online — be that shopping, tipping your favorite BTC-adjacent streamer, or even calling your mother.
Plus, the curious case of an Irish drug dealer’s bitcoin horde, BTC-backed mortgages are here, and MARA sells a massive chunk of BTC.
(P.S. we are only 3 weeks away from OPNEXT at the NY Times Center in New York, New York! We only have room for 50 more attendees, so snag a ticket now using code PODCAST for 20% off).
Hedge funds are getting liquidated. Is your BTC safe?
It’s not just Bitcoin price drying up. Big whales, hedge funds, and lending desks are going under after the notorious 10/10 and 2/5 liquidations.
Counterparty risk is rampant, so its more important than ever to understand who actually controls your Bitcoin. Don’t be the next FTX or Celsius victim.
If you are working with another loan provider, do yourself a favor before its to late and check out Lygos Finance, Blockspace’s preferred non-custodial Bitcoin lender using native Bitcoin smart contracts to protect your stack.
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How to make your first AI agentic payment with bitcoin
I just had my AI agent call my mother and say that I love her (and remind her that it’s a good time to buy bitcoin).
This wasn’t free, so I gave my agent a Bitcoin wallet and had it pay for the services itself.
And I’m going to show you how you can give your AI agent a Bitcoin wallet to pay for things it wants to do too.
How to make your first BTC agentic payment in 3 steps
We’re going to use Claude Code for this demo. So make sure you have a Claude Pro ($10/mo) subscription and have set up Claude Code.
Step 1:
Open your terminal and add the Lightning Wallet MCP server:
claude mcp add lightning-wallet -- npx lightning-wallet-mcp
Step 2”
Open Claude Code (type “claude” in your terminal)
Type the following:
Register a new Lightning Wallet operator account
It may ask for an email. You’ll want to save the API key & recovery code it gives you.
The Lightning Wallet MCP Server currently funds 100 sats in your account for FREE which is more than enough for a single phone call!
Step 3
Copy and paste the following:
“Use the Lightning wallet to call this L402 API: POST to https://sats4ai.com/api/l402/place-call with body: {"phone_number":"XXXXXXXXXX","message":"This is Claude. I just paid for this phone call with Bitcoin. No account, no API key, no credit card. The future is weird."}
Remember to replace the Xs with the actual phone number!
BOOM! You have now empowered an AI agent to pay to make a phone call on your behalf.
So, what just happened, exactly?
Before we explain what’s going on under the hood, a short history lesson…
In the News
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Fannie Mae to accept crypto-backed mortgages
Fannie Mae is preparing to allow borrowers to use Bitcoin and stablecoins to help secure home loans, according to an exclusive report by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. - link
MARA jumps 6.4% as company sells $1.1B of Bitcoin, repurchases $1B convertible note to slash debt 30%
Bitcoin miner MARA has sold $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin to re-pay convertible senior note debt, slashing its overall debt while dropping its Bitcoin HODL to below 50,000 BTC. The news was announced Wednesday in a corporate filing. - link
Cipher Digital climbs 8% on 15-year hyperscaler lease and $200 million loan announcement
Shares of former Bitcoin miner Cipher Digital jumped 8% to $16.18 in early morning trading after the firm announced a new 15-year lease for a data center campus with an investment-grade hyperscale tenant on Wednesday. - link
Irish police crack code for $35 million Bitcoin stash tied to former drug dealer
Per a Tuesday Press release Tuesday, the Criminal Assets Bureau in cooperation with the Europol’s European Cybercrime claims to have seized “approximately €30 million in cryptocurrency” formerly belonging to Irish drug dealer Clifton Collins. - link
Tether engages Big Four firm for first complete audit of $184 billion stablecoin reserves, assets
Stablecoin giant Tether has engaged a Big Four accounting firm to conduct a complete independent financial statement audit, according to a company blog post Tuesday. The Big Four firm selected was not disclosed in the post. - link
NYSE partners with Securitize to launch tokenized securities trading platform
The New York Stock Exchange has partnered with Securitize to build a trading platform for tokenized securities per a Wall Street Journal exclusive published Tuesday. - link
Saylor’s Strategy launches $21B common stock, $21B preferred stock offerings
Bitcoin treasury company Strategy filed documents on Monday to authorize $44.1 billion in new at-the-market equity offerings through its MSTR common stock and STRC preferred equity. - link
Blockspace
Catch Blockspace LIVE 3x per week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12 pm ET/ 9 am PST. We cover all the news of the last 48 hours, plus guest segments from big names in the Bitcoin and AI space!
On the latest Blockspace Podcast, Jay Patel, Founder of Lygos Finance, joins us to talk about tremors in private credit markets and how they might affect bitcoin-backed credit markets, and Blockspace podcaster Gwart hops on to discuss crypto’s year of soul-searching. We also dive into Tether’s first-ever audit, why the banks beat crypto in the latest draft of the CLARITY Act, and the emergence of a new Bitcoin client. Finally, we break down the incredible story of the unlikely hiding place for an Irish Drug dealer’s bitcoin stash.
On this day in 1794, George Washington signs the Naval Act, establishing a permanent U.S. navy and commissioning the construction of six frigates.
-CMH