Developer Proposes Paywall API Access via Bitcoin Lightning or Proof-of-Work

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A developer has outlined a method to protect API endpoints from bot scraping without requiring user accounts, API keys, or payment dashboards. Each API call requires the requester to either pay a small Bitcoin Lightning invoice of 10 satoshis or solve a SHA-256 proof-of-work puzzle consuming CPU time. The approach means that large-scale scraping becomes prohibitively expensive in either electricity or micropayments, while legitimate low-volume callers face minimal friction. The system issues a cryptographic challenge per request, and the completed proof or payment itself serves as the authorization token. A live demonstration server at gate.powforge.dev is available for developers to test the concept using provided code samples.

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