AI · Web3 · Hackathon
NanoPay
A pay-per-query AI API that settles a tiny USDC payment before returning a Gemini response.
Experiment
Test whether an AI API can charge at request scale without a subscription or account balance. The prototype prices each query at one tenth of a cent in USDC.
Request flow
A Solidity contract accepts micropayments. The Node.js API verifies payment before requesting a Gemini response, then returns the answer only after the payment check passes.
Why Arc
The demo uses Arc for settlement because its low transaction costs make repeated sub-cent payments practical to explore. The project submission reports gas costs far below Ethereum for this use case.
Result
The working demo processed more than 57 live on-chain transactions and was submitted to the Arc Blockchain Hackathon.