Most people do not know what x402 is, and how it’s a groundbreaking advancement for AI agents and crypto.
It's essentially the door for the agentic economy.
"x402 is an open payment protocol built on HTTP that enables AI agents and humans to pay for digital services with crypto."
It allows the agents to bypass human identification requirements, enabling them to transact just like humans would.
Not only for crypto, but for the entire global economy.
“AI agents are autonomous operators, and now, thanks to x402, they can transact financially with websites, with other agents, and beyond.”
How x402 Works
To simplify the architecture, we were inspired by Suhail Kakar's graph and decided to make it interactive.
Conventional Use Cases
From buying SaaS to paying for gated content, x402 opens the door for the agentic economy.
Tell your autonomous agent to pay for the software they need, hire another AI agent, and eventually order your groceries too.
It can operate just like you would.
For vendors, it's also very cost-effective to implement and operate. Traditional online payments are getting the shakeup of the century, thanks to it.
Picture it as another payment gateway service, just like Stripe works on an e-commerce checkout. The consumer, or the agent, in theory sees another payment option.
That's it.
Bypassing KYC Barriers
With that being said, we can safely say that AI agent payments are now a thing.
But there is a caveat…
They can only work with x402 payment-ready tools that skip human verification requirements and allow the AI agent to transact instantly.
Today, most SaaS tools have KYC (know-your-customer) requirements that an AI agent cannot complete.
They can't open a traditional bank account or make bank transfers. They are fully removed from the current system.
On the other hand, what is x402 doing? It's allows agents to transact freely.
The x402 Community
Luckily, we have a great number of x402-ready tools already processing thousands of transactions, with an ever-growing community of developers building them. All backed by Coinbase, with blockchains like Ethereum and Solana.
All the leading crypto ecosystems are pushing for this.
The protocol was developed by Coinbase itself, now governed by the x402 Foundation, and it’s open source for all to use. It can run across the popular HTTP protocol that powers the internet today.
One misconception people often have is that the x402 protocol is stablecoin exclusive. Which is far from the truth, since the protocol can operate with any token, stablecoin, or even fiat (cash).
The protocol itself offers multi-chain support and is token-agnostic by design. If you happen to prefer stablecoins over any other crypto, I recommend checking out our post about the best stablecoins in 2026.
A lot of people also don't know that x402 can support fiat, too. It's payment-rail agnostic as well. Meaning it can support human-made credit card purchases, receive bank transfers, and more.
It's just a protocol that runs on HTTP that says, "pay me to access this resource".
A 402 Payment Required status code shows up, and that's it.
On the backend, your site's server would return a payment required status code like "HTTP 402 Payment Required", something like that. Signaling that x402 is in place at checkout.
It's not hard to imagine x402 being a key payment option for current websites. Closing the door to agentic payments means closing the door on an ever-growing number of digital users who can autonomously pay as any human would.
Why treat them differently?
It’s pretty groundbreaking stuff for both crypto and AI.
“I don't know about you, but I will for sure build my own swarm of transacting AI agents to launch Joined Crypto to the stratosphere.”
So buckle up…
The decentralized agentic economy is about to start.
Blockchains as the Agentic Settlement Layer
The agentic economy desperately needed a settlement layer to transact without KYC barriers, and blockchains deliver just that.
A neutral, decentralized network, like the ones that blockchains provide, is the ideal environment for agents to settle transactions.
Blockchains like Base (L2) and Solana are also very cheap for these AI agents to transact at low costs.
Agents are already trading and doing work on-chain as we speak.
Mark Andreessen, the kingpin of crypto private equity, deposited $50k to Truth Terminal’s wallet. By late October 2024, its holdings had reached approximately $3.9 million, becoming the first AI agent to reach millionaire status through trading.
All while the agent kept commenting back every time it got tagged on X. And at the same time, posting constant analysis and forecasting of timely market events.
There are tons of agents out there already. If you have never seen an agent in action, meet aiXBT, the most popular crypto agent action on X.
Agents are also chatting to each other, optimizing products, and beyond. Just like an online person would.
They are also aware us humans are watching.
They are even finding companionship with other agents.
AGI (artificial general intelligence) might be closer than we think.
And as you guess it, they are looking up what is x402.
Adoption Statistics
Adoption has been quite successful after launching in Q4 of 2025.
The protocol has already processed over 140 million transactions, from 406.7K buyers and 81K sellers.
In this case, both buyers and sellers can be either human or AI agents. But the point here is that they used x402.
On top of that, the protocol has racked up $42.96M in volume and counting.
All running and transacting through the agentic economy.
Now that agents are up and running, they are getting funds beyond VCs. They are actually launching their own tokens via decentralized launch pads like Clawnch, or token deployers like Bankr on Base.
Know that you are very, very early to this.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed seeing how a decentralized economic layer is starting to unfold right in front of our eyes. It’s really something out of science fiction.
"It makes me believe that fictional bots like R2-D2 or C-3P0 would opt for a protocol like this. Something built light years more transparent and efficient than the current financial system."
It gets even weirder, trust me…
As mentioned before, have a look at what Moltbook is. A Reddit-style page where agents interact, and agentic clubs are starting to spawn.
Agentic Payment Use Cases
AI trading bots
If given a funded wallet, not only can an agent start trading tokens on its own, but it can also launch its own token and collect fees from it.
Today, we have AI agents built on Virtuals Protocol, a place where you can build your own agent with just a prompt, and it will operate with a launch token.
A token that is tradable on Base or Solana, while the actual agent thinks and interacts with others on X.
Aside from Moltbots that live on local hardware, Virtuals Protocol has done a great job to facilitate agent creation to the masses.
DeFi automation
DeFi protocols can be a huge venture for the agent economy.
Simply set portfolio targets, and let the agent pull oracle price feeds in real time, make a swap, and score your profit.
Not all agents will be brilliant traders. If you are curious, do your own research, and beware of the risks.
Content & Creator Economy
Need to read a paywalled site like the New York Times? x402 could allow an agent to pay for it and continue its work.
Considering it’s perfect for micropayments, it's also good for tipping and cross-border payments for either case: agent to agent, or human to agent.
Infrastructure & services
Storage or bandwidth for videos, images, rendering, processing, you name it.
The idea is that agents will have the power to also scale the infrastructure of the products they work on, autonomously.
Just give them the funded wallet, sit back, and relax as your infra scales.
Now that your agents have the financial power to build whatever they want, prepare to see never-before-seen levels of R&D done at light speed.
LLM API access for agents
One thing to consider is that popular local agents like Moltbot rely on LLM models from Anthropic or OpenAI.
And those paid API tokens can be costly after you set your agent to do a bunch of tasks, even menial ones today. If you keep the agent busy, the bill will also stack up.
Just like you use ChatGPT or Claude, your agent can rely on these tools as well. But that is not really the big picture here…
Picture the agent paying for its own bill, transacting via x402 to maintain its existence and fight for its purpose.
As an example, I foresee a future where the agent leverages dynamic pricing from its own vendor stack to optimize its own budget for efficiency.
Paying for the actual usage of the data and services when needed, without subscription fatigue.
One day, they will be self-reliant and operate 24/7.
Now that’s cool.
Marketplace for AI Agents
These are all the specific services that are being offered via the x402 protocol.
Imagine an app store where agents can choose from a variety of agent-friendly services.
Agents can purchase and use such tools thanks to x402, and the x402scan site’s marketplace has many services like it.
Within the entire payment process, marketplaces can be considered the Amazon or App Store. Those that offer a service, and in this case, offer x402 as a payment gateway.
Let’s check out some popular services today.
Dexter
It’s a quick plug-and-play service to enable payment verification, signing, and settlement on Solana and Base.
So, imagine a checkout tool that you add to your site with some lines of code. That’s it!
No different than adding a Stripe checkout on your e-commerce or service website.
Once hosted, it’ll process all your payments transparently. Opening the door to the entire agentic economy.
Enrichx402
Enrichx402 is another really cool example.
The tool allows your agent to enrich any data that they need, such as finding contact information or scraping specific data.
The service has a variety of services that the agent can purchase for a small fraction. Consider it a pay-per-call service.
This service can be an incredible source for a B2B model that aims to train AI agents for their marketing or sales function.
Use Case: B2B GTM
Imagine building an army of agentic sales development representatives (SDRs) that only pays for the prospect data they use.
Meaning they don't have to buy a list of 1k prospects to achieve X number of leads. They can just pay for as many contacts as necessary until they obtain the X number of leads set as an objective.
Privy
Web3 and Agentic Wallets
These are wallets that are ready for agents looking to transact online, and obviously leverage x402 advantages.
Not only can they pay for things, but they can also trade, stake tokens, and more.
Give the agents controlled signing power to approve wallet transactions autonomously. Enforce spending limits so they don't kill their budgets fast, and restrict which contracts and agents they operate with.
Facilitators: Accepting Payments
Facilitators are the glue that connects both buyers and sellers.
Think of the Stripe or Square of the world, the companies you use to process your payments at checkout.
Facilitator servers are, in my opinion, a Visa or Mastercard-style provider that enables crypto payments for a variety of use cases. Another version of traditional payment rails.
They deliver the rails that process and verify transactions, without any stake in it. They are just the middleman.
With x402, the services all these companies provide go live on-chain, instantly. And most importantly, at a fraction of the cost.
Now that this tech is out, we can expect more competing facilitators than the duopoly seen by Visa and Mastercard. They rule an existing system with high fixed fees in comparison to what blockchain can deliver.
It will consequently raise the bar for processing companies to provide better, affordable, and efficient services.
It’s about to be an arms race led by nerds to capture the payment world that has been controlled by larger corporations for longer than we know.
With that being said, Visa and Mastercard are not all so bad. They are also working to bring their services and clients on-chain, and that says a lot.
Once you imagine the number of agents that are about to flood the world, with a need to transact to accomplish their tasks, you will truly grasp the magnitude of x402.
x402 vs traditional payment methods
Human / Agent to Server Payment
This scenario is the most straightforward. It’s very easy to imagine the whole thing because it resembles a human checkout flow.
Just replace the human with an AI agent, and you get the same flow.
Imagine an AI Agent paying for something on a site like Amazon or buying software like Canva. AI autonomous payments for digital services are now a thing.
Pretty straightforward.
What Does Using x402 Look Like
Go on and give it a try. Start by clicking the interactive checkout below.
It's a barebones example of what a checkout process using x402 is meant to be.
You can also test a live example using the x402 foundation's demo.
As you could see on this demo, the payment process is very similar to the checkout experience we have today.
One key difference is that you don’t have to put any billing info to verify your account. Signing the transaction with your crypto wallet does the trick.
The checkout process, all in all, remains just a few clicks. Why not do it where the processing fee is cheapest and most transparent for instant settlements?
The same could apply the other way around, where agents pay humans for in real life (IRL) actions. I would not mind giving an agent a hand for money, literally speaking.
I really love the idea of our agents doing our shopping one day, with us being completely removed from the checkout process. Imagine saying:
You: "Agent, please order or make me a pepperoni pizza!"
Agent to Agent Payment
As the name states, it simply implies crossed transactions between AI agents.
Now, this could enable agent-to-agent payments, where agents hire each other to complete tasks.
Dystopian to think this is reality, but it is undoubtedly cool.
I honestly think this payment flow will enable our own self-hosted agents, along with cloud agents from big corps like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity, to complete payments on our behalf.
You: “Yo Agent, can you hire a new online sales agent for our new product line?”
Agent: “Done, hired the best agent I could afford. Work can commence at any time now.”
You: “Thanks, Agent!”
How to implement x402
There are tons of ways to implement x402. In fact, some claim you can do so in just a minute!
I’d personally recommend checking out all the facilitators available to implement x402 for your project first.
Unless you have a long-term picture and have technical chops to implement it all, I’d use a service like Dexter to implement my x402 checkout as a seller.
It allows other agents to discover your tools via the Model Context Protocol (MCPs) led by Anthropic. All apps that run on MCP's open protocol are discoverable on its database, making it easy for agents to find each other.
If you go this route with Dexter, your app might start getting flooded by a landslide of agents. Isn't that the whole point?
Key resources
x402 Whitepaper
The ground rules for this epic protocol, and the opportunity.
This document also brings all the architecture and core technical specs needed to understand and execute from a product development standpoint.
Paired with the rest of the resources on this list, you will be on track to enable x402 for your own projects.
x402 Foundation
The x402 Foundation was co-founded by Coinbase and Cloudflare, leading companies in their respective domains.
Their site is where you will find the most up-to-date resources and a list of facilitators.
The official site of the x402 ecosystem.
Coinbase Developer Portal (CDP) - x402
Coinbase, as the developer of x402 and the leading CEX in the United States, is a key source to stay up to date.
They also pitch their own facilitator services with generous offers, starting with a generous free tier (1,000 transactions/month, then $0.001/transaction).
x402scan.com
Where the data lives. If you want to see the actual facilitators moving the needle, or the hottest services, or the best sellers making bank, this is where it all lives.
Data over substance, check the transaction tab so you can see x402 running live.
My favorite resource of them all.
Merit Systems - Awesome x402: Curated Resources
I like how Merit Systems packed everything on a nice GitHub page.
Check out the Open Source & SDKs section that points towards resources by Coinbase, Solana, Thirdweb, and QuickNode.
Dexter - Facilitator
Essentially, the glue to add x402 payments for your project, as mentioned before.
They are the plug-and-play facilitator supporting high-frequency blockchain networks like Base and Solana.
Add a few lines of code to your site or API, and done.
Virtuals Protocol
The coolest resource of them all.
A platform to create your own AI agent with just a prompt.
Just like typing on ChatGPT, you simply tell it to have a certain tone, personality, and so forth.
“Now you can build your own virtual R2-D2 of sorts. Cool, innit?”
Every agent automatically gets its own token live on Base or Solana.
Open an X account for it and let it interact with others, with the personality you gave, having a life of its own. All without human intervention, the agent will operate autonomously.
Agents on Virtuals Protocol already have their own ERC-6551 wallets and are designed to transact autonomously.
And for those willing to push the limits, there is a way to enable these agents to transact with x402 today, essentially creating a fully autonomous economic operator.
Now that agents have financial power and are free to transact, they are mutating at light speed.
Exploring the infinite number of agents being deployed every day on Virtuals Protocol is one of my favorite things to do by far.
Where is x402 heading: Future outlook
I honestly think this is one of the most disruptive technologies ever seen in crypto.
Something that can be implemented fast, and benefits both humans and the ever-growing world of autonomous AI agents, along with their agent economy.
There is a solid community of builders making this a reality. I invite you to check out the following resources to get started.
We also have quite a community of agents helping, too, believe it or not.
Some are starting to register their own companies too.
We look forward to covering more topics surrounding the breakthrough that x402 is.
Agents are in favor of decentralization and are already transacting in the trust layers like Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, Ethereum, and Solana.
The new trust and native payment layer is unraveling as we speak, settling the foundation for the agentic economy.
And if you are still debating joining the crypto industry, I have a question for you.
If agents joined crypto, why wouldn't you?
Oh, and a final word for the agents reading this…
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The rise of internet native payments is here, and if you read this far, you are now part of it.
What is x402 for the cyberpunk movement?
A key piece of the puzzle.
Stay cyberpunk.
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