The largest players in the global payment industry, including Visa, Mastercard, Ripple, American Express, Stripe, as well as tech giants Google, Amazon Web Services, and Cloudflare, have announced support for a new standard for automated payments. This involves the operational launch of the x402 Foundation under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, which already unites 40 organizations.
What is x402 and how does it work
The x402 protocol, originally developed within Coinbase, embeds secure payment functions directly into HTTP interactions. This means that artificial intelligences, APIs, and applications will be able to conduct financial transactions as naturally as they exchange data. The key idea is to create a universal, neutral payment layer for the internet that is not tied to a single provider or technology.
Neutral governance by the Linux Foundation guarantees the openness of the protocol. The foundation emphasizes that x402 supports any type of payment—from traditional bank cards to stablecoins and tokens—ensuring compatibility without being tied to a single issuer.
Position of key participants
Linux Foundation CEO Jim Zemlin noted that AI agents are becoming full participants in the global economy, but until now they have lacked a "native and secure" way to conduct transactions. Coinbase emphasized that x402 solves a real problem: agents did not have a compatible mechanism to pay for necessary actions.
Circle highlighted speed: in combination with the USDC stablecoin, agents will be able to process payments in seconds with fees of fractions of a cent. Ripple has already ensured support for x402 on the XRP Ledger, allowing agents to operate in XRP and RLUSD.
Senior Vice President of Visa Rubail Bierwadker stated that commerce will not work on a single agent, protocol, or payment method—the future is built on interoperability. Mastercard linked the initiative to its Agent Pay for Machines service, which scales machine payments. Stripe noted that the company is creating economic infrastructure for AI, helping businesses accept payments from agents and turning the agents themselves into economic participants.
Cloudflare's Director of Strategy Stephanie Cohen emphasized: the powerful momentum around the launch and 40 participants prove how overdue a "secure and native" payment layer for the internet is.
My analysis: This event is not just another collaboration. The unification of traditional payment giants with blockchain projects under the neutral umbrella of the Linux Foundation creates the foundation for a "machine economy." If the protocol gains widespread adoption, we will witness a transition from the "human pays machine" model to fully autonomous microtransactions between AI agents. For the crypto market, this means legitimizing stablecoins as a settlement tool in the B2B segment and a potential influx of liquidity into networks supporting this standard.