- Visa, Mastercard, and Ripple have joined the x402 Foundation, supporting a payment protocol designed for AI agent and machine-to-machine payments.
- The Linux Foundation now oversees x402 under official governance with 40 member organizations, following Coinbase’s transfer of the protocol.
- Coinbase launched x402 in May 2025, reviving the long-unused HTTP 402 “Payment Required” internet standard for blockchain-based payments.
Digital payments are transcending human beings in the future. Some of the largest financial and technology firms in the world, including Visa, Mastercard, Ripple, American Express, Stripe, Shopify, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudflare, Circle, and MoonPay, are endorsing a new payment protocol known as x402.
AI agents need a native way to pay. Today, we announced the operational launch of the x402 Foundation to help enable community-based innovation in open payments with initial support from 40 member organizations and institutions.
Learn more and join the effort:… pic.twitter.com/mOjpIvUXJv
— The Linux Foundation (@linuxfoundation) July 14, 2026
After Coinbase transferred the protocol to an independent foundation, the Linux Foundation stated that the x402 Foundation is now functioning under official governance with 40 member organizations. The foundation is backed by leading companies from the payments, blockchain, cloud computing, and e-commerce sectors, including Visa and Mastercard (global card payment networks), Ripple (a blockchain-based payments company), American Express (financial services), Stripe, Adyen, and Fiserv (payment technology providers), Shopify (e-commerce platform), Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Cloudflare (cloud and internet infrastructure providers), as well as Circle (issuer of the USDC stablecoin), MoonPay (crypto payments platform), and the Solana and Stellar foundations (blockchain ecosystem organizations).
Software programs and AI agents can automatically pay one another without the need for a bank account, credit card, or human consent thanks to the x402 protocol. AI-powered services may find it simpler to purchase data, gain access to APIs, or make real-time payments for digital resources as a result.
The Internet Waited 30 Years For HTTP 402
An internet standard that has been around for more than 30 years serves as the inspiration for x402. In anticipation of online payments becoming a feature of the internet, engineers reserved the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response code when the web was originally developed. However, tiny purchases were unfeasible due to high card processing rates, so companies turned to advertising, subscriptions, and API keys instead.
In order to ultimately implement the unused payment code, Coinbase launched x402 in May 2025. According to the protocol, a server will reply with a price and a 402 Payment Required message when it receives a payment request. After sending a USDC stablecoin payment, the client, which might be an AI agent, automatically has access to the desired service or data.
Accounts or prior connections between the two parties are not needed, and the process just takes a few seconds.
x402 Handles 75 Million Transactions As AI Bots Embrace Blockchain Payments
The expanding AI sector has also taken notice of the protocol. Autonomous AI bots cannot sign subscription contracts, apply for credit cards, or create bank accounts like humans can. But since they can safely sign blockchain transactions, x402 is a useful payment option for machine-to-machine interactions. While Cloudflare incorporates the protocol into its AI agent toolset, Google has already used x402 in its agent payment structure.
The network conducted almost 75 million transactions over the last 30 days, or about 29 payments every second, according to recent data posted on the x402 website. The protocol settled almost $24 million between 22,000 vendors and roughly 94,000 purchasers throughout that time.
These figures indicate that the average payment was only 32 cents, underscoring x402’s emphasis on managing low-value transactions that are frequently too costly for existing card networks to handle effectively.
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