programmable-money-x402

Encode Club Programmable Money Hackathon — Circle × Arc
Track: Agentic Economy — AI agents that hold wallets, pay and transact autonomously in USDC Repo (public): https://github.com/Gentech-Labs/programmable-money-x402

The Problem

AI agents need to pay for APIs, compute, and data — but there's no standard way to do it programmatically. Every integration means manual API keys, subscriptions, or custom payment flows. Real agent autonomy requires programmable money.

The Solution

x402 on Arc — a payment gateway that bridges Circle's USDC infrastructure with the HTTP 402 Payment Required standard:

1. An agent calls an API → gets HTTP 402 with payment requirements
2. The agent pays USDC on Arc (sub-second settlement, USDC fees)
3. Access is granted — no API keys, no signups, no human in the loop

This is programmable money for the agent economy.

Architecture

Agent → HTTP Request → x402 Middleware → HTTP 402 + Arc USDC invoice
           ↓                                        ↓
    Access Granted  ←  Payment Verified  ←  Agent pays USDC on Arc

Track Focus

Agentic Economy — AI agents hold wallets on Arc, pay for services in USDC autonomously, using Circle's stablecoin-native L1 for sub-second settlement.

Components

• x402 Gateway — middleware that drops into any API, handles 402 → payment → access
• Arc Settlement Layer — USDC transfers via Circle's infrastructure on Arc
• Agent SDK — one function call for any agent to pay x402 APIs
• Playground — test transactions, manage wallets, see the flow live

Why Arc + Circle

Arc is built for this — USDC as the native fee token, sub-second finality, and programmable wallet infrastructure. x402 on Arc means agents settle payments in the same block they're requested.

Deployment (LIVE on Arc testnet)

ArcAgentWallet.sol — autonomous agent wallet contract — deployed and verified on-chain:

Field	Value
Network	Arc testnet (chain ID 5042002)
Contract	0x79ec00506db1ea123752084ebf1d4f26e0655287
Deploy tx	0x3b6085b19997ff34a706cb0c746f29f7cba8773a9e8b930da44e93f1dc7f6d85
Block	55,009,063
Deployer	0xB6c0C5859Df4fA84bD17727e468e297006a05a3c (test wallet, funded with faucet USDC)
Status	✅ Success (gas used 1,757,302)
Runtime bytecode	7,880 bytes verified on-chain
Explorer	https://testnet.arcscan.app/tx/0x3b6085b19997ff34a706cb0c746f29f7cba8773a9e8b930da44e93f1dc7f6d85

What the deployed contract does: the agent wallet autonomously holds USDC, can be funded by any party, and executes agent-initiated transfers with a safety timeout — programmable money for agents, live on Circle's Arc L1.

Team

Jordan Jones — GenTech Labs

Timeline

Week	Milestone
Week 1	✅ Project setup, architecture defined
Week 2	✅ x402 gateway + Arc/Circle integration
Week 3	✅ Agent SDK + end-to-end flow
Week 4	✅ MVP deployed on Arc testnet (Aug 2) — demo, video, submission