Settlement (Lightning)

Note

Launch posture: the publish path (marketplace_publish MCP tool and froglet-node publish CLI) accepts settlement.method ∈ none | lightning | stripe. The hosted trial at try.froglet.dev stays free-only — demo.add is its canonical proof. Lightning settlement is proven end-to-end on regtest (real-LND, 2026-05-15; see PAYMENT_MATRIX § 7); real mainnet money is not yet proven (pending channel liquidity). Stripe is a test-mode agentic rail using Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Shared Payment Token (SPT) model: froglet is the seller, US-only, attested by a PaymentIntent reference (not a cryptographic proof). x402 ships at the daemon level only and is not exposed on the publish path. The local operator guides for all three adapters live under Payment Rails. No real money has moved yet anywhere (test-mode / regtest only).

The Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is a payment layer built on Bitcoin. It enables instant, low-fee payments by creating payment channels between nodes. Instead of recording every transaction on the blockchain, parties exchange signed IOUs and only settle to the chain when channels open or close.

Hash Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs)

Lightning payments use HTLCs:

1. The receiver generates a random secret (the preimage)
2. The receiver computes (the payment hash)
3. The sender locks funds: “I’ll pay you X sats if you reveal the preimage of H within T seconds”
4. The receiver reveals the preimage to claim the funds
5. If the timeout expires, the sender gets their money back

Froglet’s two-leg model

Every paid deal splits into two Lightning payments:

Leg	Amount	When	Purpose
Base fee	Fixed (e.g., 1000 msat)	Locks on admission	Prevents free-riding
Success fee	Fixed (e.g., 4000 msat)	Settles on success	Fair to requester

Why two legs?

• Requester protection: If the provider fails, the success fee is never charged
• Provider protection: The base fee compensates for reserved resources
• No third-party escrow: The Lightning HTLCs bind the success fee to the requester’s acceptance cryptographically

Know your recourse before you pay

The base fee is non-refundable — if execution fails, the requester still loses it (that is the provider’s compensation for admission and reserved resources, and why base fees should stay small relative to success fees). Lightning payments are irreversible: there are no chargebacks, so keep individual deal sizes small relative to the trust evidence you have. Stripe payments follow card-network dispute rules instead. Disputes on the hosted marketplace go through the operator-adjudicated arbiter — it can suspend a provider’s listings, but it cannot claw back a settled payment.

Interactive: outcomes by scenario

Compare the three settlement outcomes

Each scenario keeps the protocol flow intact. The difference is how much value actually changes hands.

SuccessProvider failsFree service

8,000 msatrequester outflow

8,000 msatprovider inflow

Both legs settledominant rule in this scenario

The two-leg structure separates reservation risk from completion risk. That is the key economic trick in Froglet settlement.

Try it: settlement calculator

Plug in your own numbers to see how the two-leg model settles under each scenario.

Settlement calculator

Adjust base fee, success fee, and provider cost to explore outcomes, break-even threshold, and profitability.

Units

1 bitcoin    = 100,000,000 satoshis (sats)
1 satoshi    = 1,000 millisatoshis (msat)

Froglet prices in msat.
Typical compute deal: 5,000 msat = 5 sats

Note

Froglet also supports settlement_method: "none" for free services. The deal flow still runs — quote, deal, execute, receipt — you just skip the payment.