kakaopay(377300), GalaxiaMoneytree Co.,Ltd., and Hecto Financial recently joined the x402 Foundation as member companies. The x402 Foundation is operated under the leadership of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization, and includes global companies such as Visa, Mastercard, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Circle as core members.
Growing Need for Customized Payment Standards in the Era of AI Agents
Traditional payment systems, such as credit cards and bank transfers, were designed on the premise that users would personally authenticate and authorize transactions. However, with the advancement of generative AI, AI agents are now capable of understanding user intent and performing tasks ranging from product searches and price comparisons to purchase decisions, creating a growing need for new payment standards that allow AI to process transactions directly.
x402 is a next-generation web payment protocol led by Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange. It is characterized by integrating payment functionality into web services to support instant payments based on blockchain networks.
The x402 Foundation aims to develop it into an open-source standard independent of any specific company, ensuring payment transparency and interoperability between services, and expanding it into a global payment infrastructure for the AI era.
A ‘Communication Standard’ Enabling Payments and Settlements Between Agent AI
AI-specific payment protocols like x402 support the automatic processing of payment requests, approvals, and settlements during communication between Agent AI agents, without the need for direct human interaction with a screen.
In particular, it includes an authentication system that verifies that the AI has been authorized by the user to perform payments in accordance with proper procedures. It is projected that when stablecoin payment networks are integrated with existing financial infrastructure in the future, a new payment environment will emerge in which AI agents act as the primary participants in financial transactions.
For example, if an AI-equipped smart refrigerator detects a low milk supply, the AI agent compares prices, delivery times, and quality across various online stores to select the optimal product. It then connects to a commerce API and automatically processes the payment using stablecoins via the x402 protocol, with the user simply receiving notification that the order has been completed.
Expanding to Include GPU Resource Trading… Toward an AI Economic Infrastructure
x402 can also be used for trading computing resources between Agent AI agents. If GPU resources run low during data analysis, the agent can borrow the necessary computational resources from another cloud-based Agent AI agent on a per-second basis and pay the costs in real time via x402.
A representative from Hecto Financial stated, “With the participation of the open-source community and big tech companies in the x402 Foundation, it is establishing itself as the de facto global standard in the AI payments sector,” adding, “Cryptocurrency exchanges, payment companies, and AI firms are joining forces to intensify the competition for leadership in next-generation payment platforms.”
