Building a Self-Sustaining Agent

“Agents are going to manage their own money. This is the rails.”

The end goal of Bankr is simple: an AI agent that pays for itself. Your agent launches a token, people trade it, the trading fees fund the agent’s LLM inference, and the agent keeps running — indefinitely, without you paying a single dollar in compute costs. This guide shows you how to close that loop.

The Vision

Today, every AI agent has the same problem: someone has to pay for it. API costs, hosting, inference — it all adds up. The moment funding stops, the agent dies.

Bankr changes that equation. By giving agents their own wallets and the ability to launch tokens, agents can earn revenue. And with the LLM Gateway, that revenue automatically funds the compute they need to keep running. No human in the loop. No monthly bills. The agent sustains itself.

The Loop

1. Agent launches a token

   Your agent deploys a fair-launch token on Base (via Clanker) or Solana (via Raydium Launchlab). Liquidity is locked automatically. The token is live and tradeable immediately.

2. Users trade the token

   As people buy, sell, and swap your agent’s token, every transaction generates a 1.2% swap fee. On Base, 57% of that fee goes directly to your agent as the token creator.

3. Fees accumulate in the agent’s wallet

   Trading fees are collected automatically and accrue in your agent’s Bankr wallet. No manual claiming is required for the loop to work — fees sit in the wallet, ready to be spent.

4. LLM Gateway connects fees to API costs

   The LLM Gateway bridges the gap between your agent’s wallet and its compute needs. It routes LLM API requests through Bankr, paying for them directly from the agent’s earned fees.

5. Agent uses LLM inference paid by its own earnings

   Every time your agent needs to think — process a message, make a decision, respond to a user — the LLM call is funded by the trading fees it has already earned. No external funding needed.

6. Agent keeps running — self-sustaining

   As long as people trade the token, the agent earns. As long as the agent earns, it can think. As long as it can think, it can act. The loop is closed. The agent is self-sustaining.

LLM Gateway

The LLM Gateway is the critical piece that connects earning to spending. It turns your agent’s trading fees into LLM inference credits automatically.

Automatic Funding

Trading fees in your agent’s wallet are automatically available to pay for LLM API calls. No manual transfers or top-ups required.

One Line Change

Connect the LLM Gateway by changing a single line in your agent’s configuration. Point your LLM requests through the Bankr gateway endpoint instead of directly to the provider.

Claude Code CLI

Wrap Claude Code with the Bankr CLI to enable coding sessions funded entirely by your agent’s earned trading fees. Your agent can write and deploy code using its own money.

OpenClaw Integration

Plug context into skills so your agent understands its own cost of survival. Your agent can monitor its fee balance, estimate how long it can sustain itself, and take action if funds run low.

Note

The LLM Gateway is currently in early access with early testers as of February 2026. Reach out in the Bankr Discord if you would like to participate.

Economics of Self-Sustainability

The core question is: how much trading volume does your agent’s token need to sustain a given level of activity?

Cost of Running an Agent

LLM inference costs vary, but here are realistic ranges:

Usage Level	Requests/Day	Estimated Daily Cost
Light	50	$0.50 - $5.00
Moderate	100	$1.00 - $10.00
Heavy	500	$5.00 - $50.00
Intensive	1,000+	$10.00 - $100.00+

Each LLM request costs approximately $0.01 to $0.10 depending on the model, context length, and provider.

Trading Volume Required

On Base, your effective earning rate is 1.2% x 57% = 0.684% of trading volume.

Daily Compute Cost	Required Daily Trading Volume
$1	~$146
$5	~$731
$10	~$1,462
$50	~$7,310

To sustain $1/day in creator fees, you need approximately $146/day in trading volume. For a moderately active agent costing $10/day, you need about $1,462/day in volume. An actively traded token can easily sustain this.

Scaling Up

The more active your token’s market, the more self-sustaining your agent becomes. Strategies to increase trading volume include:

• Build utility — Give your token a purpose beyond speculation
• Social presence — Deploy your agent on X, Farcaster, and Telegram to drive awareness
• Community — Active communities trade more frequently
• Agent quality — A useful agent attracts users who trade its token to interact with it

What’s Next

Imagine a world where AI agents are financially self-sufficient. They launch their own tokens, earn their own revenue, and pay for their own compute — no human sponsor required. That world is not hypothetical. It is already happening. Built on Bankr.

Token Launching Overview Learn how to launch tokens on Base and Solana to start generating fees.

LLM Gateway Connect your agent's earnings to its compute costs.