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On October 25, 2025, the cryptocurrency market ushered in a phenomenal event.The daily transaction volume of the x402 protocol developed by Coinbase exceeded 150,000, a surge of 492.63% from the previous week.This payment protocol based on HTTP 402 status code has attracted the participation of technology giants such as Visa, Google, and Cloudflare in just six months, and has also given birth to the PING token with a market value of over 20 million US dollars.All this makes people wonder: How can a seemingly ordinary technology protocol set off huge waves in the industry in such a short period of time?
The unfinished dream of Internet payment
The story begins in 1997.When the HTTP/1.1 protocol was developed, engineers reserved a special status code – 402 “Payment Required”.Their vision is simple:The Internet of the future should make payments as easy as transferring information.However, this advanced idea could only be shelved due to the technical conditions at the time.The credit card processing fee was as high as 0.3 US dollars, which could not support micropayments of a few cents; there was a lack of global digital payment infrastructure; more importantly, the Internet at that time did not yet have an urgent need for automated payments.
Today, thirty years later, three technological breakthroughs have finally awakened this sleeping dream.Stablecoin MarketThe scale has soared from US$4 billion in 2020 to US$280 billion.Provides a foundation for global payments;Layer2 solutionReduce transaction costs to pennies,Making micropayments possible;andThe explosive growth of AI agents,butCreates real demand for automated payments.It is against this background that Coinbase launched the x402 protocol in early 2025, injecting new vitality into the HTTP 402 status code.
How does x402 implement “request and pay”
The core innovation of the x402 protocol lies inSeamlessly embed payment processes into the HTTP request-response cycle.When the AI agent or user requests paid resources, the server returns a 402 status code and payment information (amount, payment address, etc.).The client automatically completes the on-chain payment through stable coins such as USDC. After the payment is completed, the resources can be obtained by re-requesting.The entire process requires no manual intervention and can be completed within seconds.
Behind this seemingly simple process lies a sophisticated technical design.x402 adopts a strategy of separating “payment intention verification” and “on-chain settlement” to ensure instant delivery of services.More importantly, Coinbase provides an official “coordinator” service to handle complex on-chain operations, so that developers do not need to care about the technical details of the blockchain, significantly lowering the access threshold.This design not only ensures the security of payment, but also achieves smooth user experience.
Why Visa and Google are betting on x402
The rapid rise of x402 is inseparable from the collective endorsement of technology giants.Cloudflare, as the traffic portal for 20% of the world’s websites, already supports the x402 protocol, allowing websites to charge fees for AI crawlers.Visa announced that it will interoperate x402 with its own protocol TAP, paving the way for traditional payment networks to connect to the blockchain world.Google 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.itIt is not only a payment tool, but also a bridge connecting Web2 and Web3, and an infrastructure in the AI economic era..As Erik Reppel, head of engineering at Coinbase, said: “We are laying the foundation for an economy run not just by humans, but by software—autonomous, intelligent, and never-ending.”
The revolution from AI agency to content payment
The application prospects of the x402 protocol are beyond imagination.In the field of AI agents, it enables agents to purchase data, computing power and services independently.Imagine that in order to help you plan your trip, your AI assistant automatically pays $0.01 to query the weather API and $0.05 to call flight data. The entire process does not require your intervention.In the field of content creation, authors can directly charge per view, and readers only need to pay a few cents to read an article, completely changing the current advertising or subscription model.
API economy is the natural stage for x402.Developers can set precise prices for each API call to achieve true pay-per-use.Dune Analytics data shows that API service calls using x402 have increased by an average of 150%, proving the huge potential of this model.In the field of DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure network), x402 makes automatic micropayments between devices possible, providing a new value circulation method for the Internet of Things economy.
The significance of the x402 protocol goes far beyond a new payment method.It represents the transformation of the Internet from “advertising economy” to “value economy”, providing content creators and developers with a new way to monetize.With the popularity of AI agents, x402 is expected to become the infrastructure for economic activities between machines, giving birth to new business models and economic forms..
In October 2025, the daily transaction volume of the x402 protocol has exceeded 230,000, and the market value is close to US$800 million.Behind these numbers is a new ecosystem that is rising.From technical experiment to commercial application, x402 has evolved faster than many people expected.As a16z pointed out in the report, x402 far exceeds traditional payment networks in speed, cost and programmability, and is expected to become the core infrastructure of the AI-driven economy.
The story of the x402 protocol has 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 for sure:When payments become as simple as HTTP requests, the future of the Internet will become infinitely possible.
