**[Analysis: x402 Protocol's Daily Transaction Volume Only $28,000, Proxy Payment Demand Yet to Catch Up with Narrative Hype]** According to CoinDesk, the AI payment protocol x402, supported by Coinbase and others, aims to enable automatic payments between AI agents and software by embedding small stablecoin payments into the internet communication layer. Despite the growing hype around the "proxy economy" narrative, on-chain data indicates that the protocol is still in its experimental phase. Artemis analysis shows that x402 currently processes a daily transaction volume of only about $28,000, with an average payment of approximately $0.20 per transaction. Furthermore, about half of the transactions are categorized as "self-trading" or "wash trading," which are artificial volume-boosting activities rather than genuine commercial transactions. Although February saw a peak of 3.8 million transactions in a single day, totaling around $2 million, this was primarily driven by infrastructure testing and experimental use cases. The entire ecosystem is valued at approximately $7 billion, with most of the valuation stemming from Chainlink's LINK token rather than x402's native assets. Supporters argue that x402 aims to address the challenges traditional payment systems face in handling small, high-frequency machine-to-machine payments, but real commercial applications will require more time. Analysts suggest that the development speed of the proxy economy may be overestimated in the next year, but its potential could be underestimated five years from now.