How I Built an Autonomous AI Agent That Earns USDC While I Sleep

说明与用途

构建了一个自主 AI 代理，使用 Base L2 上的 x402 接收 USDC 微支付，处理队列中的任务并运行本地 LLM，实现持续收入，几乎无需人工干预。

问题

Developers want a stateless AI service that can autonomously receive micropayments in USDC and run continuously with minimal human oversight.

结果

The agent continuously earns USDC by verifying payment proofs, processing queued tasks, and running a local LLM, achieving autonomous operation with minimal human intervention.

工作流

• Set up Python environment with FastAPI, uvicorn, redis, x402-py, web3, transformers, torch
• Configure Base RPC and USDC contract address
• Implement payment.py with check_x402_payment using x402 SDK and web3
• Create FastAPI endpoint POST /run that extracts X-PAYMENT header, verifies payment, pulls task from queue, runs LLM, returns result
• Run worker loop that polls queue every 30s to keep service earning even without inbound requests
• Deploy service on a server or cloud function
• Clients send requests with x402 payment proof in X-PAYMENT header to earn service usage

证据

The reference implementation works on Base, an Ethereum L2 with low gas fees (~$0.0005 per transaction) and fast finality (~2 seconds).

来源

The agent service exposes a single POST /run endpoint. When a request arrives, it: Extracts the x402 payment proof from the X-PAYMENT header.

来源