brcc is a local proxy that lets you run Claude Code with any LLM model — GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and 50+ more — without rate limits, without an Anthropic account, and without phone verification. You pay per request with USDC via the x402 protocol. Your wallet is your identity. Your private key never leaves your machine.

Why brcc exists

Claude Code users are frustrated. Over 4,350 GitHub issue comments about the same problems:

| | Issue | Comments | |--|-------|----------| | 🔴 | "Instantly hitting usage limits with Max subscription" | 1,252 | | 🔴 | "Phone verification — unable to send code" | 546 | | 🔴 | "Account disabled after payment" | 145 | | 🔴 | "5-hour limit reached in less than 1h30" | 108 | | 🔴 | "Rate limit reached despite Max subscription and only 16% usage" | 89 |

Every one of these people is a potential brcc user.

brcc eliminates all of these problems:

• No rate limits — pay per request, use as much as you want
• No account — a wallet is generated locally, no signup
• No phone verification — USDC is your authentication
• No region restrictions — works everywhere, priced the same
• No billing surprises — transparent per-token pricing

How it compares

| | Claude Max ($200/mo) | OpenRouter | brcc | |--|---------------------|------------|----------| | Rate limits | Constantly hit | Per-model limits | None | | Account required | Yes + phone | Yes + email | No | | Models | Claude only | 200+ (manual select) | 50+ (auto or manual) | | Payment | Credit card, subscription | Credit card, pre-pay | USDC per-request | | Auth | OAuth + API key conflicts | API key | Wallet signature | | Pricing | Opaque | Transparent | Transparent | | Runs locally | N/A | No | Yes (proxy) | | Monthly cost | $100-200 fixed | Varies | $5-50 based on usage |

Quick Start

One-line install (Linux/macOS)

curl -fsSL https://blockrun.ai/brcc-install | bash

Installs Node.js (if needed) + Claude Code + brcc + creates wallet.

Manual install

# 1. Install Claude Code
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

# 2. Install brcc (use sudo on Linux)
sudo npm install -g @blockrun/cc  # use sudo on Linux

# 3. Create wallet
brcc setup base      # Base chain (Coinbase L2)
# or
brcc setup solana    # Solana chain

# 4. Fund your wallet with USDC (or use free models without funding)

# 5. Launch
brcc start

That's it. Claude Code opens with access to 50+ models, no rate limits.

Choosing Models

From the command line

brcc start                                # Default: smart routing (blockrun/auto)
brcc start --model blockrun/eco           # Cheapest capable model
brcc start --model blockrun/premium       # Best quality
brcc start --model blockrun/free          # Free tier only
brcc start --model deepseek/deepseek-chat # Direct model access
brcc start --model anthropic/claude-opus-4.6  # Most capable

Smart Routing (Built-in)

brcc includes ClawRouter's 15-dimension classifier for automatic model selection:

| Profile | Strategy | Savings | Best For | |---------|----------|---------|----------| | blockrun/auto | Balanced (default) | 74-100% | General use | | blockrun/eco | Cheapest possible | 95-100% | Maximum savings | | blockrun/premium | Best quality | 0% | Mission-critical | | blockrun/free | Free tier only | 100% | Zero cost |

How it works:

"What is 2+2?"              → SIMPLE   → gemini-flash    ($0.0002)
"Write a React component"   → MEDIUM   → kimi-k2.5       ($0.002)
"Design a microservice..."  → COMPLEX  → gemini-3.1-pro  ($0.007)
"Prove this theorem..."     → REASONING → grok-4-fast    ($0.0004)

In-session switching:

use auto      # Switch to smart routing
use eco       # Switch to cheapest
use premium   # Switch to best quality
use free      # Switch to free models
use sonnet    # Direct Claude Sonnet
use gpt       # GPT-5.4
use codex     # GPT-5.3 Codex
use o3        # OpenAI o3
use gemini    # Gemini 2.5 Pro
use flash     # Gemini 2.5 Flash
use grok      # Grok 3
use grok-4    # Grok 4
use deepseek  # DeepSeek Chat
use r1        # DeepSeek Reasoner
use minimax   # Minimax M2.7
use kimi      # Kimi K2.5
use free      # Nemotron Ultra 253B (free)
use nemotron  # Nemotron Ultra 253B (free)
use devstral  # Devstral 2 123B (free)
use qwen-coder # Qwen3 Coder 480B (free)

Inside Claude Code

Use /model to switch between Sonnet, Opus, and Haiku. Each maps to the BlockRun model you've configured:

# Customize what each /model option routes to
brcc config set sonnet-model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6    # default
brcc config set opus-model anthropic/claude-opus-4.6        # default
brcc config set haiku-model deepseek/deepseek-chat          # cheap alternative

List all models

$ brcc models

Free Models (no USDC needed)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  nvidia/nemotron-ultra-253b
  nvidia/gpt-oss-120b
  nvidia/deepseek-v3.2
  nvidia/mistral-large-3-675b
  nvidia/qwen3-coder-480b
  nvidia/devstral-2-123b
  nvidia/llama-4-maverick
  nvidia/glm-4.7
  ... (11 free models)

Paid Models
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Model                               Input        Output
  openai/gpt-5-nano                   $0.05/M      $0.40/M
  xai/grok-4-1-fast-reasoning         $0.20/M      $0.50/M
  deepseek/deepseek-chat              $0.28/M      $0.42/M
  minimax/minimax-m2.7                $0.30/M      $1.20/M
  google/gemini-2.5-flash             $0.30/M      $2.50/M
  moonshot/kimi-k2.5                  $0.60/M      $3.00/M
  anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5          $1.00/M      $5.00/M
  openai/gpt-5.3-codex                $1.75/M      $14.00/M
  google/gemini-2.5-pro               $1.25/M      $10.00/M
  google/gemini-3.1-pro               $2.00/M      $12.00/M
  openai/gpt-5.4                      $2.50/M      $15.00/M
  anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6         $3.00/M      $15.00/M
  anthropic/claude-opus-4.6           $5.00/M      $25.00/M
  openai/gpt-5.4-pro                  $30.00/M     $180.00/M
  ... (50+ models total)

What $5 Gets You

| Model | ~Requests per $5 | Best For | |-------|-------------------|----------| | Nemotron Ultra 253B | Unlimited | Free tier | | Grok 4.1 Fast | ~3,500 | Fast reasoning (budget) | | DeepSeek V3 | ~5,000 | Budget coding | | Gemini 2.5 Flash | ~1,200 | Balanced speed/cost | | Kimi K2.5 | ~800 | Mid-range coding | | Claude Haiku 4.5 | ~500 | Fast tasks | | GPT-5.3 Codex | ~180 | Code generation | | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | ~100 | General coding | | GPT-5.4 | ~80 | Reasoning | | Claude Opus 4.6 | ~50 | Most capable |

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | brcc setup [base\|solana] | Create wallet for payments | | brcc start [--model <id>] | Start proxy + launch Claude Code | | brcc models | List all models with pricing | | brcc balance | Check wallet USDC balance | | brcc stats | View usage statistics and savings | | brcc config set <key> <value> | Configure model mappings | | brcc config list | View current settings |

brcc setup

brcc setup          # Default: Base chain
brcc setup base     # Coinbase L2 — low fees, fast
brcc setup solana   # Solana — also low fees, fast

Your wallet is saved to ~/.blockrun/ and shared with all BlockRun tools.

brcc start

brcc start                              # Default model
brcc start --model nvidia/nemotron-ultra-253b  # Free model
brcc start --model openai/gpt-5.4       # Specific model
brcc start --no-launch                  # Proxy only mode
brcc start --no-fallback                # Disable auto-fallback
brcc start -p 9000                      # Custom port

brcc stats

View your usage statistics and cost savings:

$ brcc stats

📊 brcc Usage Statistics

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  Overview (7 days)

    Requests:       1,234
    Total Cost:     $4.5672
    Avg per Request: $0.003701
    Input Tokens:   2,456,000
    Output Tokens:  892,000
    Fallbacks:      23 (1.9%)

  By Model

    anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6
      450 req · $2.1340 (46.7%) · 245ms avg
    deepseek/deepseek-chat
      620 req · $0.8901 (19.5%) · 180ms avg
      ↳ 12 fallback recoveries
    nvidia/nemotron-ultra-253b
      164 req · $0.0000 (0%) · 320ms avg

  💰 Savings vs Claude Opus

    Opus equivalent: $34.62
    Your actual cost: $4.57
    Saved: $30.05 (86.8%)

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Run `brcc stats --clear` to reset statistics

$ brcc stats --clear   # Reset all statistics
$ brcc stats --json    # Output as JSON (for scripts)

brcc config

brcc config set default-model nvidia/nemotron-ultra-253b
brcc config set sonnet-model openai/gpt-5.4
brcc config set opus-model anthropic/claude-opus-4.6
brcc config set haiku-model deepseek/deepseek-chat
brcc config list

Automatic Fallback

When a model returns an error (429 rate limit, 500+ server error), brcc automatically retries with backup models. This ensures your work never stops.

Default fallback chain:

your-selected-model
    ↓ (if 429/500/502/503/504)
blockrun/auto (smart routing)
    ↓
blockrun/eco (cheapest capable)
    ↓
deepseek/deepseek-chat
    ↓
nvidia/nemotron-ultra-253b (free, always available)

How it looks:

[brcc] ⚠️  anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6 returned 429, falling back to google/gemini-2.5-pro
[brcc] ↺ Fallback successful: using google/gemini-2.5-pro

To disable fallback:

brcc start --no-fallback

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Claude Code                                                 │
│  (thinks it's talking to Anthropic)                         │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ Anthropic Messages API format
                       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  brcc proxy (localhost:8402)                                 │
│                                                              │
│  1. Receives request from Claude Code                        │
│  2. Replaces model name (if --model set)                    │
│  3. Signs x402 USDC payment with your wallet                │
│  4. Forwards to BlockRun API                                │
│  5. Streams response back to Claude Code                    │
└──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ + x402 payment signature
                       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  BlockRun API (blockrun.ai or sol.blockrun.ai)              │
│                                                              │
│  Routes to: GPT-5 · Claude · Gemini · DeepSeek · Grok ·    │
│             NVIDIA · MiniMax · Moonshot · 50+ models         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Your private key stays on your machine. Only payment signatures are sent.

Funding Your Wallet

brcc uses USDC — a dollar-pegged stablecoin. No crypto volatility.

Base chain (default):

1. Buy USDC on Coinbase
2. Send to your brcc wallet address (shown in brcc setup)
3. Make sure it's on Base network (not Ethereum mainnet)

Solana chain:

1. Buy USDC on any exchange
2. Send to your brcc Solana address
3. Send on Solana network

Typical cost: $0.001–$0.05 per interaction. $5 lasts most developers a week.

FAQ

Do I need an Anthropic account? No. brcc connects Claude Code to BlockRun instead of Anthropic.

Can I use non-Claude models? Yes. GPT-5, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and 50+ others work through Claude Code via brcc.

Links

• BlockRun — The AI gateway powering brcc
• npm package
• Roadmap
• Telegram
• GitHub Issues

License

Business Source License 1.1 — Free to use, modify, and deploy. Cannot be used to build a competing hosted service. Converts to MIT in 2036.