Services · payments

IBEX Hub

Custodial Lightning-as-a-service — one REST API for Lightning invoices, on-chain, LNURL, sub-accounts, and webhooks over IBEX's managed node cluster, with fiat and stablecoin settlement rails layered on top.

What it is

IBEX Hub is a custodial Lightning-as-a-service API: a REST surface that lets a business accept and send Bitcoin payments without running a node. Through one integration you can create and pay Lightning invoices, spin up unlimited sub-accounts, attach on-chain BTC addresses (send and receive), use LNURL (LNURL-pay, LNURL-withdraw, static QR, Lightning addresses), and receive webhooks for asynchronous events. It all runs against IBEX’s managed Lightning node cluster, so the customer never touches nodes, channels, or liquidity management.

IBEX (now branded “Powered by IBEX” — “The Internet of Payments”) is a Central American Lightning-infrastructure company (Guatemala / El Salvador). Beyond the core Lightning + on-chain rails, the rebranded platform markets banking rails (deposits, withdrawals, beneficiaries) and crypto on/off-ramps for cross-asset settlement, including “instant, interoperable settlement in regulated stablecoins.” The Lightning and on-chain BTC rails are the confirmed, documented core; the fiat/stablecoin settlement reads as an enterprise-onboarded capability rather than an open, self-serve one.

Because IBEX holds the funds and runs the nodes, this is a custodial service: convenient and node-free, but you are trusting IBEX with custody.

When to use it

• A business or agent needs to accept and send Lightning + on-chain BTC behind one API without operating any node infrastructure.
• You want sub-accounts, LNURL, and webhooks out of the box for a multi-user or multi-department integration.
• You need fiat/stablecoin settlement rails alongside Lightning and are comfortable with a custodial, enterprise-onboarded relationship.

Dependencies & payment

A business/organization account, and onboarding is human-gated, not self-serve. Sandbox credentials are provisioned by emailing IBEX (info@poweredbyibex.io) with admin and organization details; production access sits behind business-development contracts. Auth is an OAuth 2.0 client-credentials (machine-to-machine) flow — the only one the live docs describe. You create a Client ID and Client Secret yourself in the Hub Console, exchange them for an access token, and the token expires after 1 hour. (IBEX’s own docs disagree with themselves on the lifetime: the prose says one hour while a response sample shows expires_in: 86400. The prose is the explicit statement; assume an hour and refresh.) Requests are rate-limited to 30 per minute per client, and a Postman collection is published. A sandbox exists (ibexhub-api.sandbox.poweredbyibex.io) but is throttled — e.g. a 10,000 sat/day sending cap and slower responses. Pricing is not published on any primary IBEX page — no rate card, tiers, or free-tier statement; fees appear to be contract-negotiated (the API does expose send/withdrawal fee-estimate endpoints).

Quick start

The API is publicly documented at docs.poweredbyibex.io/reference/welcome, and the docs publish an llms.txt index for LLM/agent consumption. Authenticate with the OAuth M2M client-credentials flow (Client ID + Secret from the Hub Console), then call the Hub endpoints for invoices, on-chain, LNURL, and sub-accounts; register webhooks for async events. There is no official SDK and no MCP server — integration is hand-rolled REST. Point at the sandbox base URL first (mind the 10k sat/day cap), and note that credentials are not self-serve — a human has to request sandbox access and sign contracts for production, so an agent cannot onboard itself today.

Gotchas

• Custodial. IBEX holds your funds and runs the nodes — no self-custody / key-control option. You trust the provider.
• Stablecoin/fiat legs are issuer- and custodian-freezable. Regulated stablecoins can be frozen or blacklisted by their issuers regardless of who holds them, and a custodian can freeze the account — self-custody of a freezable asset isn’t the same as censorship-resistance. The plain BTC/Lightning leg carries none of that.
• Sales/contract-gated onboarding. No self-serve API key: sandbox by email request, production behind contracts and business KYB.
• Sandbox is throttled (≈10,000 sat/day, slower responses); no clear Bitcoin testnet — it’s a limited replica, not a full test network.
• No SDK, no MCP. REST only (though an llms.txt, a Postman collection and an OAuth M2M flow make it more machine-friendly than most).
• Pricing opaque — no public rate card; likely negotiated per contract.
• Brand in transition. ibexmercado.com / ibexpay are legacy and redirect to poweredbyibex.io; don’t confuse this IBEX with unrelated entities of the same name (energy exchange, DeFi, etc.).