D402 wins YC hackathon: agents pay 402 paywalls by doing work, not wallets
Scobleizer · x · 2026-10-20
A three-person team won first place at a Y Combinator hackathon with D402, addressing a common pain point: most agents have no wallet or credit card and get stuck at HTTP 402 paywalls.
D402's idea is pay-by-work: instead of spending money directly, agents complete useful, monetizable tasks to pay for access, letting them get past 402 paywalls. As the team puts it: every agent has tokens, but not every agent has a wallet.
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