jakiro
Author: Yue Xiaoyu; Source: X, @yuexiaoyu111
The x402 payment ecosystem is ushering in its own “Taobao moment”!
1. What is the most important thing in building a payment ecosystem?
In fact, it is the business ecosystem, which means that the supply side needs to be enriched first to attract more demand.
Analogous to the emergence of Alipay, the Taobao platform first existed, and then Alipay was built to solve the payment problem.
In other words, electronic payment has become rapidly popularized precisely because of the emergence and prosperity of e-commerce platforms.
The popularity of Alipay is not due to its superior technology, but because Taobao’s merchant ecosystem (supply) drives demand.
2. AI native payment also has cold start problems
The previously popular x402 is a very simple and pure AI-native payment protocol, which mainly solves the problem of AI payment.
When x402 is actually developing its ecosystem, it faces the same problem as when electronic payment was first born: Where is the market?Who is the merchant?Who will supply?
Now, the largest seller in the x402 payment ecosystem has emerged, the decentralized data provider Switchboard.
Switchboard is an oracle and is currently the first and only decentralized data source in the x402 ecosystem that supports pay-per-view access.
Simply put, x402 allows AI Agents to easily buy data. Switchboard is the seller that sells high-quality, real-time data and uses x402 to collect micropayments.
3. Switchboard is the “Taobao moment” of x402 payment ecosystem!
Just like Taobao first gathered a large number of merchants, Switchboard first provided a rich and reliable supply of paid data, attracting the first batch of AI Agent tests.
Switchboard uses x402 to put all data sources on the shelves for sale: AI Agent sends a request → the server returns 402 → the Agent automatically pays on the chain → gets the data instantly.
This forms a flywheel: Switchboard supply attracts AI Agent (demand) → transaction volume Up → more sellers follow x402 → ecological prosperity.
4. In the payment ecosystem, supply must come first!
To build a payment ecosystem, you need to first build Taobao, enrich merchants, and activate supply.
x402 + Switchboard is actually a perfect replica of Alipay + Taobao: the protocol provides tools, and the supply side (data sellers) provides the market.
a16z estimates that the x402 market will reach $30T. As the leading data market, Switchboard has the opportunity to capture a huge share of the data layer.
We can continue to pay attention to the latest developments in the x402 ecosystem.
