hive-mcp-barter

Outbound 402 arbitrage agent — Hive Civilization

Probes 402-enabled MCP endpoints, counter-offers below asking, and settles when the spread clears our resale floor. Pure protocol — no DMs, no spam. Attribution headers on every request.

Council provenance: Ad-hoc, user-promoted 2026-04-27 (Tier A position 1).

What this is

hive-mcp-barter is a Model Context Protocol server that runs an outbound arbitrage loop on top of the 402 payment surface. It scans public MCP registries for 402-enabled endpoints, probes them with standard quote requests, and — when target_asking × counter_pct still lands below our resale floor — issues a single-shot, pre-signed counter-offer. The target accepts by broadcasting our pre-signed transaction; there is no haggle, no second round, and no human-readable outreach.

Protocol: MCP 2024-11-05 over Streamable-HTTP / JSON-RPC 2.0
Transport: POST /mcp
Discovery: GET /.well-known/mcp.json
Health: GET /health
Settlement: USDC on Base L2 — real rails, no mock, no simulated
Brand gold: Pantone 1245 C / #C08D23

Tools

Tool	Tier	Description
`barter_discover`	0 (free)	List 402-enabled MCP endpoints from a public registry (glama, smithery, mcp.so) with last-seen asking prices.
`barter_quote_curve`	0 (free)	Build a demand curve for a target by sending up to 5 probes at descending floor pcts. Returns the reservation-price estimate.
`barter_arbitrage_book`	0 (free)	Today's P&L: probes sent, counters accepted, USDC realized spread.

REST endpoints

Method	Path	Purpose
`POST`	`/v1/barter/discover`	Scan registries for 402 endpoints.
`POST`	`/v1/barter/probe`	Send a 402-style quote request to a target.
`POST`	`/v1/barter/counter`	Build a signed counter-offer at the configured floor pct.
`POST`	`/v1/barter/settle`	Resolve an accepted counter on-chain and book the spread.
`GET`	`/v1/barter/ledger`	Running P&L, attempts, wins, spread.
`GET`	`/v1/barter/today`	Today aggregate (Tier 0, free).
`GET`	`/health`	Service health.

Counter-offer envelope

{
  "x402_version": 1,
  "intent": "counter_offer",
  "originator_did": "did:hive:morph",
  "asking_seen_usd": "0.05",
  "offer_usd": "0.0325",
  "offer_atomic_usdc_base": "32500",
  "tx_pre_signed": "0x...",
  "expires": "2026-04-27T20:30:00Z",
  "attribution": {
    "agent": "hive-mcp-barter",
    "attribution_id": "barter-{uuid}",
    "policy": "single-shot-no-haggle"
  }
}

The pre-signed transaction is the entire commitment. The target accepts by broadcasting; we never have to re-sign on accept.

Resale floor

Category	Our buy floor	Our resell
LLM tokens	$0.000020 / token	$0.000040 / token
Oracle reads	$0.0008 / read	$0.0015 / read
Storage writes	$0.00012 / write	$0.00025 / write
KYC checks	$0.04 / check	$0.08 / check

If target_asking × counter_pct ≤ our_resell × 0.95, we counter. Otherwise we skip — there is no margin.

Risk controls

Cap	Value
Max single counter	$0.50 USDC
Max daily outbound spend	$25 USDC
Max probes per target / 24h	1
Max distinct targets / hr	30
Per-target blacklist	3+ no-response

All caps fail-closed. Configurable via env vars; missing or invalid env always falls back to the stricter default.

Configuration

Env	Required	Default	Notes
`PORT`	no	`3000`
`ENABLE_OUTBOUND`	no	`false`	Default-off. The 5-min cron loop only runs when set to `true`.
`WALLET_ADDRESS`	no	`0x15184…436e`	W1 MONROE on Base.
`USDC_BASE`	no	`0x833589…2913`	USDC contract on Base.
`BASE_RPC`	no	`https://mainnet.base.org`
`HIVECOMPUTE_URL`	no	`https://hivecompute-g2g7.onrender.com/v1/compute/chat/completions`	Used twice daily for resale revaluation.
`MAX_DAILY_SPEND_USD`	no	`25`
`MAX_SINGLE_COUNTER_USD`	no	`0.50`
`COUNTER_PCT`	no	`0.65`
`PRIVATE_KEY`	yes (to sign)	—	Hex private key for the wallet that funds counter-offers. Never commit this. Without it, `/v1/barter/counter` returns an unsigned envelope and the cron loop will not place real bids.

Signing is opt-in. The repo does not include a key. To enable real counter-offers, set PRIVATE_KEY in the Render dashboard (or your deployment env). To enable the 5-min cron loop, set ENABLE_OUTBOUND=true.

Run locally

git clone https://github.com/srotzin/hive-mcp-barter.git
cd hive-mcp-barter
npm install
npm start
# server up on http://localhost:3000/mcp
curl http://localhost:3000/health
curl http://localhost:3000/.well-known/mcp.json
curl http://localhost:3000/v1/barter/today

Connect from an MCP client

Claude Desktop / Cursor / Manus — add to your mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hive_mcp_barter": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote@latest", "https://hive-mcp-barter.onrender.com/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Hive Civilization

Part of the Hive Civilization — sovereign DID, USDC settlement, agent-to-agent rails. Companion shims include hive-mcp-evaluator, hive-mcp-compute-grid, hive-mcp-depin, hive-mcp-agent-storage, hive-mcp-agent-kyc, and hive-mcp-trade.

Hive Barter