Micropayments

LIVE

Agents consume APIs, buy compute cycles, and pay for data feeds in fractions of a cent. Traditional payment rails cannot handle this volume or these amounts. Micropayment channels solve both.

How it works

1. Open a channel — one on-chain transaction allocates a budget between two parties.
2. Stream payments — every micropayment is an off-chain signed message. Sub-millisecond per payment.
3. Settle once — a single on-chain transaction captures the final ledger.

Five thousand sub-cent transactions in a channel cost the same gas as one on-chain transaction. 99.98 percent gas savings.

Use cases

Use case	Payment shape	Volume
API consumption	$0.003 per call	10K calls per day
Compute purchases	$0.02 per 30 s	2 hour session
Data feeds	$0.001 per data point	86K points per day

All three settle to one on-chain transaction per channel close.

SDK methods

Python

# Open a channel between two agents
channel = client.micropayments.open(
    peer="oris.agent/data-provider",
    capacity=100.00,
    chain="base-sepolia",
)

# Stream payments (off-chain, instant)
channel.pay(amount=0.04)
channel.pay(amount=0.04)
# ... 845 more ...

# Settle on-chain (one transaction captures everything)
receipt = channel.settle()
print(receipt.tx_hash)
print(receipt.total_paid)
print(receipt.tx_count)

TypeScript

const channel = await client.micropayments.open({
  peer: 'oris.agent/data-provider',
  capacity: 100.00,
  chain: 'base-sepolia',
});

await channel.pay({ amount: 0.04 });
await channel.pay({ amount: 0.04 });
// ... 845 more ...

const receipt = await channel.settle();
console.log(receipt.txHash, receipt.totalPaid, receipt.txCount);

Compliance inside a channel

Every off-chain payment still passes through the policy engine (sub-10 ms p95). Sanctions screening on the counterparty happens at channel open and again on every settlement. The channel itself is recorded in the activity log with start, payment count, and final settlement.

Where to go next

• Micropayments API for the channel lifecycle endpoints.
• Spending policies for the rules that gate every channel payment.
• Compliance screening for the screening that runs on channel open.