x402 Foundation has officially joined the Linux Foundation, becoming a fully neutral and open HTTP payment standard (based on the classic 402 Payment Required status code). AI agents can embed payments directly into HTTP requests, using stablecoins like USDC and DIEM to automatically pay for API calls, compute power, and inference results—no manual approval needed. Google, Stripe, AWS, Cloudflare, and others are involved, and Venice AI has already rolled out x402 support (agents can autonomously pay to call Venice's inference services). Previously, 'paying' involved Web2 hassles like invoices and manual reviews. Now, it's a browser-native, seamless, AI-friendly standard. The agent economy is only going to grow bigger.