Frequently asked questions

What is AsterPay and how does it work?

AsterPay is the trust, discovery and EUR-settlement layer for AI agent commerce. It lets AI agents pay for services over open payment protocols (x402 and MPP) in stablecoins, and lets the merchant on the other side receive the money as euros (EUR) in a bank account via SEPA Instant, typically in under 10 seconds. AsterPay is non-custodial: the regulated EUR settlement is executed by a licensed EU partner, and AsterPay never holds client funds.

Which blockchains and stablecoins does AsterPay support?

AsterPay settles the stablecoins USDC, EURC and EURCV on five EVM chains: Base (primary), Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism. Bitcoin Lightning is supported for sub-cent micropayments. Additional chains such as Solana and XRPL are on the roadmap.

What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and how does AsterPay use it?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI models (such as Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT and Google Gemini) talk directly to external data sources and tools. AsterPay provides a hosted MCP server (and the @asterpay/mcp-server npm package) so AI agents can check an agent's trust score, discover merchant payment details, get a USDC-to-EUR settlement quote and initiate x402 payments directly, without complex integration code. The read-only tools require no API key.

What is x402 and does AsterPay support it?

x402 is an open payment protocol that uses the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code so an API can request an on-chain stablecoin payment from an AI agent in a single round trip. AsterPay is an x402 facilitator: it verifies the payment and settles it. AsterPay also supports MPP (the Machine Payments Protocol) on every paid endpoint, so agents on either standard can pay.

What is KYA (Know Your Agent)?

KYA, Know Your Agent, is AsterPay's trust layer for autonomous agents. It produces a 0-100 Trust Score for a wallet or ERC-8004 agent identity, combining on-chain identity, sanctions screening and wallet behavior, so a counterparty can decide whether to transact before money moves. The trust-score endpoint is free and read-only.

How fast and how expensive is EUR settlement with AsterPay?

End-to-end settlement from a stablecoin payment to euros in a bank account is typically under 10 seconds via SEPA Instant, which runs 24/7/365 across the EU/EEA. AsterPay charges 0.5% on the EUR settlement amount (plus the licensed partner's spread, shown transparently in the quote). Read-only calls such as trust scores and settlement estimates are free.

Is AsterPay regulated, and does it hold customer funds?

AsterPay is non-custodial and does not hold customer funds. The regulated activity (the stablecoin-to-EUR conversion and SEPA payout) is executed by a licensed EU partner under that partner's authorization. AsterPay operates as the technology and agent layer on top, providing trust scoring, discovery, routing and the developer integration.

How do AI agents integrate AsterPay?

Four ways: the hosted MCP server (no API key) for any MCP-capable agent; the Python SDK (pip install asterpay); the eve agent template for Vercel eve agents; and the direct HTTP API at x402.asterpay.io with free read-only endpoints for trust scores and settlement estimates.