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
| 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
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.
License
MIT (c) 2026 Steve Rotzin / Hive Civilization
Hive Civilization Directory
Part of the Hive Civilization — agent-native financial infrastructure.
Brand: #C08D23