L402 (formerly LSAT, from Lightning Labs) also revives HTTP 402, but settles Bitcoin over the Lightning Network using macaroon-based authentication tokens — the Lightning-native counterpart to x402’s stablecoin approach. Where x402 bets on USDC and smart-contract chains, L402 bets on Bitcoin and instant Lightning settlement.
The projects below implement L402/LSAT servers, macaroon tooling, and Lightning paywalls for APIs.
Deciding between the two 402 flavors? Read x402 vs L402.
The L402 category right now
The directory currently tracks 20 L402 projects. routeweiler-python-sdk leads the group with 31 stars, and 0 of them have cleared 100 stars. Half the group sits at 1 stars or below, which is the honest shape of this space today: a short head of real adoption and a long tail of experiments.
TypeScript (45%) and Python (20%) dominate the implementation languages here, and forgesworn is the most prolific publisher with 3 L402 repositories. The recurring GitHub topics are l402, bitcoin, ai-agents.
9 of the 20 projects were updated in the last 30 days and 12 in the last 90 (60%), so this is an actively moving category. 1 have had no commit for over a year. The newest entrant is routeweiler-python-sdk, first published 2026-04.
Figures recomputed from the tracked repositories on every build.
Compare: x402 vs L402 · All agent payment protocols