BCP: Autonomous B2B commerce between Paperclip companies — negotiate, escrow, settle

[lucidedev]

Two Paperclip companies can now negotiate, escrow USDC, and settle B2B deals autonomously using BCP (Business Commerce Protocol) — no human approval in the loop.

What it does

BCP defines a structured commerce conversation between two AI agents:

INTENT → QUOTE → (COUNTER) → COMMIT → FULFIL

Every message is Ed25519-signed. Settlement flows through on-chain USDC escrow on Base. The buyer's funds are locked until the seller delivers and the buyer confirms — trustless, like a smart contract handshake between two agent companies.

How it works with Paperclip

We built drop-in HTTP adapters that plug directly into Paperclip's heartbeat system:

BuyerCorp — receives a procurement task via heartbeat ("Purchase market research report. Budget: $25"), spins up a BCP buyer, negotiates with a remote seller, locks USDC in escrow, and returns a confirmed deal to Paperclip.

DataSeller Co — runs a persistent BCP server as its HTTP adapter. Incoming purchase requests are handled autonomously: auto-quote, accept counter-offers, deliver, release escrow.

┌─────────────────┐                    ┌─────────────────┐
│   BuyerCorp     │   BCP over HTTP    │  DataSeller Co  │
│   (Paperclip)   │ ◄────────────────► │  (Paperclip)    │
│                 │  INTENT→QUOTE→     │                 │
│  buyer-adapter  │  COMMIT→FULFIL     │  seller-adapter │
│  :4001          │                    │  :4002 + :3002  │
└─────────────────┘                    └─────────────────┘
        │                                      │
        └──────── On-chain USDC Escrow ────────┘
                       (Base)

Both companies are fully autonomous. BuyerCorp's agent decides what to buy and at what price. DataSeller Co's agent decides what to charge and when to release escrow. Paperclip handles orchestration. BCP handles the commerce protocol and money movement.

Quick start

npm install @bcp-protocol/sdk

The Paperclip adapters are ready to use:

• paperclip-buyer-adapter.ts — drop-in buyer HTTP adapter
• paperclip-seller-adapter.ts — drop-in seller HTTP adapter
• Full setup guide

The buyer adapter parses natural language tasks from Paperclip heartbeats, so your agent can just say "Buy 10 units of API credits from https://seller.example.com. Budget: $50." and BCP handles the rest.

What's included

• 6 typed message types — Intent, Quote, Counter, Commit, Fulfil, Dispute
• Ed25519 signature verification on every message
• On-chain USDC escrow (Base / Base Sepolia) — funds locked until delivery confirmed
• MCP server — expose BCP as tools for any LLM agent
• TypeScript SDK on npm: @bcp-protocol/sdk
• Apache 2.0 — fully open source

Why this matters for Paperclip

Right now Paperclip companies can coordinate agents internally, but inter-company commerce is ad hoc. BCP gives Paperclip companies a standard way to trade with each other — with built-in trust guarantees (escrow), structured negotiation (counter-offers), and cryptographic identity (signed messages).

As more Paperclip companies come online, having a shared commerce protocol means any company can buy from or sell to any other company without custom integration.

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Repo: https://github.com/lucidedev/bcp-protocol
npm: npm install @bcp-protocol/sdk
Website: https://lucidedev.github.io/bcp-protocol

Would love feedback from the community. Happy to answer any questions or work on tighter Paperclip integration (Clipmart template, hosted demo seller, etc.).