Monetizing MCP Servers in 10 Lines: Proof-of-Work Meets Lightning Payments

As agent access to premium tools becomes a cost problem, this framework provides minimal-infrastructure payment gating: proof-of-work for compute-rich agents and Lightning payments for those with wallets. The 10-line implementation sidesteps OAuth/session overhead while enabling micro-monetization (21 sats per call). The dual-tier approach captures more traffic than single-layer auth because it meets agents where they are.