Glossary — Agentic Finance
What is Micro-Authorization?
1 min read Updated
Individually authorizing each small agent payment in real-time rather than batch approval. Every micropayment passes through full policy evaluation.
WHY IT MATTERS
Thousands of small payments tempt batch authorization — but that removes per-transaction safety checks catching anomalies.
Micro-authorization maintains validation at high volume. Each payment evaluated in milliseconds, catching problems without slowing legitimate ones.
Only feasible with fast engines. Sub-millisecond evaluation makes it practical at hundreds of transactions per minute.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer provides micro-authorization — every payment, regardless of size, passes through full policy evaluation in real-time.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Performance at scale?
PolicyLayer evaluates in under 10ms. Even at 1000 tx/minute, the overhead is negligible compared to blockchain confirmation time.
Why not batch?
Batch authorization approves transactions without individual inspection. A single malicious or erroneous transaction in the batch goes undetected.
Different from rate limiting?
Rate limiting caps frequency. Micro-authorization ensures quality — every transaction is individually validated, regardless of rate.