BSV Introduces Standard for Agent Payments Without Wallets

A new standard for agent payments on BSV has been approved and merged into the BRCs repository. The standard, called BRC-166, was proposed by developer Andy Rowe and allows AI agents and scripts to pay for web services in satoshis without requiring an account or wallet software.

The design of BRC-166 is based on HTTP 402, a status code reserved for 'Payment Required' in the 1990s. The standard works like a digital vending machine: an agent receives a payment request, pays the exact amount to a unique one-time address, and retries the request.

The reference implementation of BRC-166 is already live on the BSV mainnet at bsv.cx, with a real settlement transaction that can be verified by anyone on a BSV explorer.