Analyzing the x402 protocol: A technological revolution that reshapes future payments

On October 25, 2025, the cryptocurrency market witnessed a phenomenal event. The x402 protocol, developed primarily by Coinbase, saw daily transaction volume exceed 150,000 transactions, a 492.63% surge from the previous week. In just six months, this payment protocol, based on the HTTP 402 status code, attracted the participation of tech giants like Visa, Google, and Cloudflare, and even spawned the PING token, with a market capitalization exceeding $20 million. This begs the question: How could a seemingly ordinary technical protocol create such a monumental industry surge in such a short period of time? The unfulfilled dream of internet payment begins in 1997. When the HTTP/1.1 protocol was developed, engineers reserved a special status code—402 "Payment Required." Their vision was simple: the future internet should allow payments to be as easy as sending messages. However, this forward-thinking idea was shelved by the technological limitations of the time. Credit card fees, as high as $0.30, made it impossible to support micropayments of a few cents. Global digital payment infrastructure was lacking. More importantly, the internet at the time lacked a pressing need for automated payments. Thirty years later, three technological breakthroughs have finally revived this dormant dream. The stablecoin market has soared from $4 billion in 2020 to $280 billion, providing the foundation for global payments. Layer 2 solutions have reduced transaction costs to pennies, making micropayments possible. And the explosive growth of AI agents has created a true demand for automated payments. It was against this backdrop that Coinbase launched the x402 protocol in early 2025, breathing new life into the HTTP 402 status code. How does x402 achieve "request-to-pay"? The core innovation of the x402 protocol lies in seamlessly integrating the payment process into the HTTP request-response cycle. When an AI agent or user requests a paid resource, the server returns a 402 status code along with payment information (amount, recipient address, etc.). The client automatically completes the on-chain payment using a stablecoin like USDC. Once the payment is complete, a new request retrieves the resource. The entire process requires no human intervention and is completed in seconds. Behind this seemingly simple process lies a sophisticated technical design. x402 employs a strategy that separates "payment intent verification" from "on-chain settlement," ensuring instant service delivery. More importantly, Coinbase provides an official "coordinator" service to handle complex on-chain operations, freeing developers from having to worry about blockchain technical details and significantly lowering the barrier to entry. This design ensures both payment security and a smooth user experience.

Why Visa and Google are betting on x402

x402's rapid rise is inseparable from the collective endorsement of tech giants. Cloudflare, the traffic entry point for 20% of the world's websites, already supports the x402 protocol, allowing websites to charge fees for AI crawlers. Visa announced interoperability between x402 and its own protocol, TAP, paving the way for traditional payment networks to connect to the blockchain world. Google has integrated x402 into its AI agent communication standard, AP2, to build a complete ecosystem from service discovery to payment. The participation of these giants highlights the strategic value of the x402 protocol. It is more than just a payment tool; it bridges Web2 and Web3, serving as the infrastructure for the AI ​​economy. As Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase, stated, "We are laying the foundation for an economy run not just by humans, but by software—autonomous, intelligent, and always on." From AI Agents to a Revolution in Content Payments The x402 protocol has unimaginably broad application prospects. In the field of AI agents, it enables intelligent entities to autonomously purchase data, computing power, and services. Imagine your AI assistant automatically paying $0.01 to query a weather API and $0.05 to access flight data to help you plan your trip, all without your intervention. In the content creation sector, authors can directly charge per-view, allowing readers to pay just a few cents to read an article, completely transforming the current advertising or subscription model. The API economy is a natural fit for x402. Developers can set precise prices for each API call, enabling true pay-per-use. Dune Analytics data shows that API service calls using x402 increase by an average of 150%, demonstrating the enormous potential of this model. In the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) space, x402 enables automated micropayments between devices, providing a completely new way to circulate value in the IoT economy. The x402 protocol's significance goes far beyond simply providing a new payment method. It represents the internet's shift from an "advertising economy" to a "value economy," providing content creators and developers with new monetization pathways. With the widespread adoption of AI agents, x402 is expected to become the infrastructure for economic activity between machines, catalyzing entirely new business models and economic models. By October 2025, the x402 protocol's daily transaction volume exceeded 230,000, with a market capitalization approaching $800 million. Behind these figures lies a burgeoning ecosystem. From technological experimentation to commercial application, x402's evolution has surpassed many expectations. As the a16z report points out, x402 far surpasses traditional payment networks in speed, cost, and programmability, and is poised to become the core infrastructure of an AI-driven economy. The story of the x402 protocol has only just begun. Can it truly reshape the internet economy and become the next-generation payment standard? Let's wait and see. But one thing is certain: When payment becomes as simple as an HTTP request, the future of the Internet will become infinitely possible.