Nano Empire – Open-source MCP gateway with x402 micropayments and A2A routing

Description and use

Nano Empire offers a micropayment MCP gateway for AI agents, enabling pay‑per‑call tool usage without subscriptions, with sub‑millisecond routing and compute delegation.

Problem

Monetization bottleneck for AI agent tools: existing MCP servers either consume developer API credits for free or require $20/month SaaS tiers that autonomous agents cannot subscribe to.

Outcome

Nano Empire enables autonomous agents to pay per tool call without subscriptions, achieving sub‑millisecond latency (p99 0.02 ms for 100 concurrent requests) and efficient compute delegation.

Workflow

• 1. Agent discovers available tools via /mcp/manifest.
• 2. Agent sends request with x-402-receipt header to pay $0.01–$0.50 USDC per call.
• 3. Cerberus router selects optimal backend using UCB1 and Bloom filter guard.
• 4. If heavy compute required, agent POSTs to /a2a/delegate to subcontract to GPU cluster.
• 5. Payment settles on Solana USDC chain; agent receives receipt and tool response.
• 6. Agent processes response and continues workflow.

Evidence

Our agent just ran a full 8‑phase self‑demonstration—discovering the tools, hitting the paywall, settling on‑chain, and capturing an arbitrage task in 1,022ms (p99 latency 0.02ms for 100 concurrent requests).

Source