Original Title: "x402 Protocol: A New Era of Internet Payments at the Intersection of AI and Web3"
Original Source: web3 Little Fire Dragon
In 1994, a CD sold online marked the beginning of the era of e-commerce for humanity. Thirty years later, a pair of jeans autonomously purchased by AI is quietly ushering in the era of the machine economy.
When AI agents independently complete a product transaction for the first time, the underlying logic of internet payments is undergoing a silent revolution. At the intersection of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, the x402 protocol has emerged, redefining payment boundaries and building an indispensable infrastructure for the autonomous machine economy.
From Obscure Protocol to AI Economic Foundation: The Technological Reconstruction of x402
HTTP 402 status code—"Payment Required," a code that has existed in internet protocols since the 1990s but has long been idle, was reactivated in May 2025 by the Coinbase Developer Platform team. The emergence of the x402 protocol addresses the most critical bottleneck of the AI economic era: value exchange between machines.
Source: https://developer.mozilla.org
The core breakthrough of the protocol lies in abstracting payments into a machine-readable standardized interface. When AI assistants need to call paid APIs or complete transactions, they no longer rely on traditional human payment processes—registering accounts, binding bank cards, or waiting for manual reviews. Instead, payment instructions are directly embedded through HTTP requests, utilizing stablecoins like USDC for instant settlement.
This technical architecture showcases multiple advantages: minimal integration allows developers to quickly deploy payment functions; chain-agnostic design supports multi-blockchain environments like Base and Solana; and nearly zero fees make micro-payment scenarios feasible, reducing settlement time to around 200 milliseconds.
Source: Coinbase
Ecosystem Explosion: From Proof of Concept to Market Adoption
Market validation is often more persuasive than the technology itself. The first token $PING based on the x402 protocol on the Base chain triggered a chain reaction throughout the ecosystem. Its minting mechanism is simple yet efficient—users send about 1 USDC to a specific address to mint 5000 $PING tokens, and this low-barrier participation quickly ignited market enthusiasm.
Data speaks volumes: The market capitalization of $PING surpassed 30 million dollars in a short time, with a 24-hour increase of over 8 times. More importantly, this provided a real stress test for the x402 protocol—over the past 7 days, transaction volume surged by 701.7%, and transaction value increased by 8,218.5%, with approximately 31,000 new addresses joining the ecosystem.
The success of $PING is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire x402 ecosystem is rapidly expanding: Questflow has built a multi-AI agent workflow layer that has secured 6.5 million dollars in seed funding; PayAI provides multi-chain payment service support, including Solana; and Kite AI's "intelligent internet foundational trading layer" completed 33 million dollars in funding in September this year, led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst.
Giant Perspectives: Why Infrastructure Builders Are Betting Big
The strategic positioning of the Ethereum Foundation was clearly articulated at the ETHShanghai 2025 conference. Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stanczak revealed the infrastructure blueprint for the future AI agent economy: ERC-8004 as the standard for agent functionality, covering identity, reputation, and claim verification; while x402 specifically defines the payment protocol between agents, together forming the technical foundation of the autonomous machine economy.
Coinbase's deep strategic intent as the initiator is equally clear. The deep integration of the x402 protocol with the Base chain positions Coinbase at the core of the payment layer in the upcoming AI agent economy. As AI agents transition from passive tools to active economic participants, x402 is expected to become a key bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto world.
The entry of traditional payment giant Visa is even more intriguing. By incorporating x402 into its Trusted Agent Protocol framework, Visa not only addresses the security issues of AI agent transactions but also effectively acknowledges the irreplaceability of crypto payments in the machine economy. This fusion of traditional finance and crypto infrastructure marks x402's transition from marginal innovation to mainstream adoption.
Challenges and Evolution Path: From Early Adoption to General Applicability
Despite the broad prospects, the x402 protocol faces substantial challenges on its path to mainstream adoption. Merchant adoption is the first key obstacle—more businesses need to be encouraged to accept and integrate blockchain-based payment systems; regulatory compliance is another major test—finding feasible paths within the complex regulations of different jurisdictions worldwide; and user experience is equally crucial—further lowering the entry barrier so that non-technical users can seamlessly access the system.
However, these challenges are being gradually overcome. Continuous investment from industry leaders like Coinbase, deep collaboration with infrastructure providers like Cloudflare, and an expanding developer community together form a supportive network for the ongoing evolution of the x402 protocol.
From the perspective of the technology maturity curve, x402 is at a critical stage of transitioning from the innovation trigger phase to the bubble expansion phase. While market overenthusiasm may lead to short-term fluctuations, in the long run, the core issue it addresses—autonomous value exchange between machines—will become increasingly important as the AI economy expands.
Conclusion: The Silent Revolution of Infrastructure
What the x402 protocol represents is far more than the optimization of payment methods; it signifies a paradigm shift in the layer of internet value exchange. When transactions between machines become as natural and smooth as data transmission, we will have truly entered the gateway to the next generation of the internet economy.
History tells us that truly revolutionary infrastructures are often underestimated in their early stages until they become indispensable components of societal operation. The power grid was such, the internet protocol was such, and the x402 protocol is likely following this path. At the intersection of the two technological waves of AI and blockchain, a silent revolution concerning the future economic landscape has already begun.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
