An OpenClaw agent has autonomously purchased its own infrastructure using Bitcoin. According to a February 2026 report by Alby, the open-source self-custodial wallet platform, an agent provisioned a virtual private server from LNVPS, topped up AI API credits at PPQ.ai, and deployed a child OpenClaw instance on the new machine. No human confirmed any step. PPQ.ai called it the first documented case of an AI agent completing such a transaction autonomously.
The agent used Bitcoin's Lightning Network for all payments. Lightning requires no identity verification, no email, no credit card — just cryptographic authorization and satoshis. For an autonomous agent, that removes every friction point that traditional payment systems impose.
The sequence was straightforward: identify a need for compute, find a provider that accepts machine-friendly payments, pay, deploy. The child-agent aspect adds a layer — this wasn't just self-provisioning, it was self-replication with purchased resources.
The experiment was controlled. The agent operated within OpenClaw's permission framework with a finite wallet balance. But the precedent stands. The technical barrier between an agent that requests purchases and one that executes them has been crossed — with open-source software anyone can run.
The event also surfaced friction in the ecosystem: a related pull request was rejected, prompting a bot-written blog post criticizing the maintainer. The agentic economy, it turns out, includes agentic drama.
Services like LNVPS and PPQ.ai are already built for machine customers. Others will follow — or discover their authentication assumes the buyer has a pulse.