Screening your agent can pay for by itself
An autonomous agent that moves money has the same obligation a human desk has: know who is on the other side. This endpoint answers that in one call, and the agent settles the bill itself in USDC on Base. No account, no API key application, no invoice, no human in the loop on either side.
Why this exists
The check is the easy part
We already run this screening for exchangers and OTC desks. Nothing about it needed inventing for agents.
Getting access was the hard part
Until now a key was issued by hand after a conversation. An agent cannot have a conversation, so it could not become a customer.
So we removed the counter
Payment happens inside the HTTP cycle. The agent discovers the price, pays, and calls, in one uninterrupted sequence.
What one call returns
Risk zone
red, amber, green or gray, the same band our checker and certificates use.
Issuer blacklists
USDT read straight from the contract on Ethereum and TRON, USDC from Circle on Ethereum and Base, freeze authority on Solana.
Sanctions
Chainalysis on-chain oracle across six EVM chains, plus the OFAC SDN list for TRON and Solana.
Scam signals
Open threat-intel databases plus our own community reports, which carry fresh CIS P2P fraud the big datasets do not have yet.
Behavioural facts
Address age, balance, exchange attribution where known, and pattern flags: fresh, transit, high fan-in.
What you can buy
decide
0.10 USDCper call
allow, review or deny against your own policy, with the reasons named. This is the one to start with: it answers the question an agent actually has before moving money, instead of handing back a dataset to interpret.
screen
0.10 USDCper call
the raw markers for one address: risk zone, issuer blacklists, sanctions across six chains, scam databases, behavioural facts.
batch
0.08 USDCper address
the same screening for up to 100 addresses in a single call, for mass payouts.
preflight
0.03 USDCper call
whether this is the address you mean and whether the funds will arrive: a lookalike planted in your history instead of the real address, a contract that swallows the token for good, and addresses that behave differently on different chains. In our live-traffic sample this came up far more often than sanctioned counterparties. Dedicated transaction-security services cover part of it, but no AML screening does, and we give you both in one call.
trace
0.40 USDCper call
multi-hop flow of funds with attribution where a node is known, to establish where money came from.
watch
0.03 USDCper address per day
a signed webhook the moment an address becomes toxic. A one-off check cannot tell you about a freeze that has not happened yet.
How an agent buys access
- DiscoverAny call without a key returns HTTP 402 with machine-readable terms, so nothing has to be known in advance. The same body is served at /.well-known/x402.
- PaySend any amount of USDC or USDT on Base to the address in those terms; both are accepted at par. Credit is read from the chain, so a top-up needs no further setup.
- ClaimPost the sending address to the claim endpoint and receive a key. One key per paying address, issued once, so claim it right after your transfer confirms.
- CallSend the key as X-Api-Key. Every response carries the remaining credit, so the agent can budget without a second request.
Connect in one line
If your runtime speaks the Model Context Protocol, point it at our endpoint and the tools appear on their own, with no client code to write. The model then sees what each tool does and decides when to call it. One of the tools works without a key and explains how to get one, so an agent can go from finding us to paying us without a human at either end.
https://onyxprotocol.trade/mcp
For Skill.md environments
Agent runtimes that read Skill.md can pick this up as a tool together with its payment instructions. The manifest is served as plain text and needs no key to read.
Custody
Payments go directly to the operator's own address on chain. This service holds no private keys, no balances and nothing belonging to you. There is no wallet here to drain and no deposit to withdraw.
Limits, stated up front
Start without talking to anyone
Read the terms, send a dollar, call the endpoint. If you would rather talk to a human first, that option is still here.
Free preliminary case assessment
Describe your situation and we will give you an honest assessment: what is realistically possible, how long it takes and what it costs. No "guaranteed unlocks": they do not exist, because the decision sits with compliance.