From speculation to popularity, what will be the breakthrough for x402 next step?

Author: 100y.eth Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow

Key Points:

• In the cryptocurrency industry, most new concepts typically go through three stages: hype, infrastructure development, and adoption. However, most projects fail to successfully transition from the hype stage to the infrastructure stage, resulting in a loss of market attention.
• x402 is a protocol developed by Coinbase, specifically designed for AI agent payments. It allows AI agents to easily make payments through the blockchain and access paid resources without human intervention.
• From the recent surge in tokens related to x402, the protocol has entered a hype phase. However, what sets x402 apart from other typical crypto topics is that large companies like Cloudflare, Google Cloud, and Anthropic are actively adopting this technology, indicating that its infrastructure phase is rapidly advancing.
• Considering the potential of agentic commerce, x402 is expected to successfully enter the popularization stage. However, its bottleneck lies in changing consumer psychology and trust structures. According to research by Accenture, the biggest barrier to the widespread adoption of agentic commerce is consumers' lack of trust in AI agents.
• Nevertheless, Gartner predicts that by 2030, the transaction volume controlled by AI agents will reach 30 trillion dollars. Agent-based commerce will thus become an inevitable massive market in the future. This will also mark a key moment for blockchain to find its second global product-market fit (PMF) after stablecoins.

Speculation, Infrastructure, and Adoption Cycle

From new concepts to widespread applications

The cryptocurrency industry is a rapidly changing field. The rise and fall of new concepts often occurs within just a few months, and the concentration and decline of attention is more extreme than in other industries. Overall, keywords such as NFT, gaming, metaverse, and modular blockchain have all gone through similar cycles; locally, recently emerged concepts like “futarchy” have also briefly attracted market attention before quickly disappearing.

As a large number of new concepts continue to emerge in the cryptocurrency industry, these new concepts must overcome many obstacles to achieve meaningful popularization. I divide this process into three stages:

Hype Stage: This is the stage where the new concept first attracts widespread attention. During this stage, existing projects slightly related to the concept, newly launched small projects, and associated meme coins often see increases of tens or even hundreds of percent. If the concept successfully transitions to the next stage, its price may stabilize, but in most cases, the price will crash within weeks or months, and related projects will disappear.

Infrastructure Stage: Once the potential and relevance of a new concept are proven, developers begin to build meaningful products based on that concept. Product development can take a long time—ranging from several months to over a year—so vague or meaningless concepts often fade away at this stage. However, if the concept truly has value, it will maintain stable attention during this stage, create practical application scenarios, and gradually drive growth across the entire field.

Adoption Stage: If a concept has reached this point, congratulations! In the crypto industry, only a handful of concepts successfully enter the adoption stage, such as Automated Market Makers (AMMs), Central Limit Order Books (CLOBs), lending protocols, staking-related protocols, and stablecoins. Concepts at this stage have demonstrated their Product-Market Fit (PMF), thus new protocols continue to emerge while attracting a large number of users to actively participate.

Case Analysis in the Cryptocurrency Industry

So, what stage is the currently trending topic on Crypto Twitter (CT) at?

Futarchy: As mentioned above, Futarchy entered a phase of hype due to Vitalik's mention, but the heat soon dissipated. Recently, with the ICO platform of Solana, the topic has entered a phase of hype once again. However, just a few weeks later, it quickly lost attention. The reason is that Futarchy involves an extremely large governance discussion, which makes it a concept difficult to achieve widespread adoption without social generational changes.

Decentralized Energy: Decentralized energy entered a hype phase last year when many companies received investments from top-tier venture capital (Tier 1 VC). Recently, Daylight secured $75 million in funding from Framework and a16zcrypto, temporarily sparking new hype. However, market interest failed to sustain. The reason lies in the fact that, as a sector requiring physical infrastructure support, the infrastructure phase of decentralized energy will inevitably take a long time.

Robotics: Robotics also follows a similar pattern. As the combination of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI) gains attention, the project Openmind, which integrates cryptocurrency with robotics, raised $20 million from institutions like Pantera, igniting interest in the robotics field. Many small to medium-sized projects and meme coin prices surged, but it will still take time to reach the widespread adoption phase. However, considering the enormous potential of the combination of cryptocurrency and robotics, many developers, including Openmind, are actively developing related products.

From these cases, it seems that the path for new concepts in the crypto industry from inception to popularization is extremely difficult.

However, a concept called x402, which has recently attracted a lot of attention on crypto Twitter, seems poised to quickly enter the popularization stage. So, what exactly is different about x402?

Can x402 succeed?

x402 Overview

x402 is an open payment protocol developed by Coinbase, designed to allow artificial intelligence (AI) agents to autonomously complete payments and transactions without human intervention. x402 enables AI agents to use stablecoins across multiple blockchain payment services and offers the advantage of instant settlement, avoiding complex processes such as account creation, subscriptions, or API keys.

Source: Coinbase

HTTP 402 is a status code that means “Payment Required,” but it has been rarely used over the years. x402 leverages HTTP 402 so that when an AI agent sends an API request, the server returns the HTTP 402 status code, indicating that payment is required. Upon receiving this response, the AI agent will pay the required amount in stablecoins. The specific process is as follows:

1. When the AI agent attempts to access paid services (such as news articles, APIs, or data), the server returns an HTTP 402 Payment Required status code. This response not only indicates “payment required” but also includes information such as payment methods, payment amounts, and the payee (wallet address).
2. Based on the information provided by the server, the AI agent generates a transaction for the specified amount, adds a digital signature, and sends it back to the server.
3. The server passes the payment information to a “Facilitator”, who verifies the payment and processes the transaction on the blockchain.
4. After the payment is completed, the server grants the AI agent access to the service.

The importance of x402 lies not only in providing a payment standard for AI agents. Since payments are made through stablecoins on the blockchain, it enables micropayment functionalities that were previously unattainable, allowing AI agents to call APIs or payment services in real time based on usage. Moreover, x402 also allows human users to bypass complex processes such as API key management or account creation, accessing content directly based on micropayments.

2.2 Hype Phase

Source: a16zcrypto

x402 was first launched in May 2025, initially receiving limited attention. However, after being mentioned in a16zcrypto's report “State of Crypto 2025: The year crypto went mainstream,” x402 began to gain significant attention. According to Gartner data, the agentic commerce market is expected to reach a size of $30 trillion by 2030, and a16z has pointed out that x402 could become the main payment channel for AI agents.

The most obvious sign that x402 has entered the hype phase is the sharp increase in the prices of related tokens. For example, the token $VIRTUAL, which reacts every time the AI agent topic resurfaces, rose by 40% in just two days, and other related tokens also saw significant price increases, as shown in the figure below.

This makes x402 look like another typical cryptocurrency concept—hollow, superficial, driven only by hype. Indeed, many new cryptocurrency concepts emerge in a similar way: they trigger a price surge in small projects and meme coins before quickly disappearing.

However, x402 differs from other topics in that:

1. High Relevance of AI *Agent Payment Theme: This concept is not only significant in the cryptocurrency field but also attracts attention in the broader AI industry, giving it immense potential.
2. Many Web2 companies are actively paying attention to and adopting: These factors indicate that x402 may not remain in the hype phase for long, but is expected to quickly transition to the infrastructure phase.

Infrastructure Phase

Currently, x402 is in both the hype stage and the infrastructure stage. In fact, before x402 entered the hype stage, many Web2 and Web3 companies had already begun building infrastructure for x402 and actively integrating it into their own services. Therefore, to be more precise, the starting point of x402 is the infrastructure stage.

Interestingly, unlike typical crypto narratives, x402 has attracted the attention of many large Web2 tech companies, which are actively adopting this protocol. This phenomenon that crosses the boundaries between Web2 and Web3 makes x402 particularly unique in the crypto industry.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is a company that provides internet infrastructure and security solutions. Recently, the company launched the “Agents SDK” service, which helps developers easily create and deploy AI agents, as well as “Workers AI,” an environment for running AI model inference.

Cloudflare and Coinbase jointly founded the x402 Foundation and are very active in the x402 ecosystem. Cloudflare supports x402 in its “Agents SDK” service, enabling AI agents to easily make online payments.

It is worth noting that Cloudflare recently launched a stablecoin called NET Dollar, specifically designed for AI agents. AI agents built using the “Agents SDK” are expected to conduct agentic commerce using x402 and NET Dollar.

Vercel

Vercel is a cloud platform company aimed at helping developers quickly build and deploy web applications. Recently, Vercel launched services like “Vercel AI SDK” and “Vercel MCP” that enable developers to easily build and deploy AI agents and access projects through MCP.

In September this year, Vercel released x402-mcp, allowing AI agents to automatically handle payment transactions when accessing paid APIs or resources through MCP.

Google Cloud

Google Cloud previously launched the A2A protocol, which enables AI agents to communicate and collaborate with each other. The A2A protocol includes an extended feature called AP2 (Agentic Payments Protocol), which allows agents to autonomously complete payments. x402 is integrated into this system as the payment engine for AI agents to execute actual transactions.

Anthropic

Anthropic is a well-known artificial intelligence company that has developed the Claude LLM to support users in building AI agent services. Anthropic has also launched an open-source standard protocol called MCP, which defines how AI models can access external tools and data. Claude MCP supports x402, enabling Claude to automatically handle payment transactions when accessing paid MCP tools.

Visa

Visa, as the world's largest card payment network, recently announced the launch of the “Trusted Agent Protocol,” developed jointly by Visa and Cloudflare. This protocol is used to verify whether the requests made by AI agents in proxy commercial activities are trustworthy and supports payments through x402.

Other

According to Coinbase's announcement, other companies like Circle and AWS are also collaborating with x402.

In addition to companies and protocols that use x402, some developer-friendly tools have recently emerged, such as x402scan. This exploration tool can visualize the servers, transactions, and payment processes using x402, allowing users to see which services are making payments through which payment intermediaries and on which networks.

With the continuous expansion of the x402 ecosystem, more companies and tools are expected to join, bringing further enrichment and development to the entire ecosystem.

Can x402 enter the popularization stage?

3.1 Challenges in Entering the Popularization Stage

Source: x402scan

Given the sharp rise in the prices of related tokens and the adoption of x402 by numerous large companies, x402 seems to have entered the speculation and infrastructure stage. However, whether x402 can advance into the popularization stage remains an undecided question.

According to data from x402scan, there are currently about 55,000 buyers who have made 879,000 transactions with approximately 1,000 sellers. These numbers look impressive, but the total transaction amount is only around $923,000. This indicates that x402 still has a long way to go before entering the popular stage.

Conditions for entering the popularization stage

What conditions need to be met for x402 to enter the popularization stage? One of the most frequently mentioned factors is consumer psychology and trust structure. Even someone like me, who writes articles about x402, can accept AI agents' recommendations in business, but still feels hesitant to fully trust them with my funds.

Even the latest LLMs (Large Language Models) can sometimes provide incorrect information or less than ideal answers. From a psychological perspective, consumers find it difficult to trust AI agents based on these models to handle payment transactions. In fact, according to an Accenture survey of financial institutions, 87% of respondents believe that customers' distrust of AI payments is an issue, and 78% of respondents expressed concerns about AI robots making unauthorized payments or engaging in fraud.

The second factor is the current state of enterprise infrastructure. According to Accenture, 85% of financial institutions report that their existing traditional systems are not suitable for handling large-scale agency payments. In particular, the lack of systems to address fraudulent transactions in agency payments is one of the main obstacles to entering this field.

In general, to bring x402 into the popularization phase, the company needs to build a system specifically optimized for agent business and cultivate consumer trust in these systems. However, whether it is developing such infrastructure or changing consumer psychology, a significant amount of time is required. Therefore, x402 may take longer than expected to reach the popularization phase.

What does this mean for the blockchain industry?

According to Gartner's prediction, by 2030, AI agents will influence $30 trillion in purchasing behavior. Although the AI agent payment market is still in its early stages, it is encouraging that x402 seems to be establishing its position as an industry standard. This aligns with the fact that major IT companies such as Google, Anthropic, and Cloudflare are adopting x402 for AI agent payments.

So, what can the crypto market expect as x402 becomes more active? One highly likely prediction is that the recent surge in token prices related to x402 may be difficult to sustain in the long term. Since the rise of the cryptocurrency and AI fields, this concept has gradually evolved into a significant domain, giving rise to several new projects; however, the price performance of many small projects and meme tokens that surged during the initial hype has been disappointing over time.

Source: x402scan

x402 brings a clear added value to the blockchain industry: all AI agent payments will be conducted on the blockchain network. Currently, most transactions occur on the Base network, while some take place on Solana, but x402 is designed to be blockchain-agnostic, meaning it can be used on any network. This indicates that as the x402 ecosystem expands, payments will occur across multiple networks—not just Base and Solana—but driven by the demands and supplies of buyers and sellers.

Agentic commerce represents an inevitable and vast market for the future, and all payments will ultimately circulate on the blockchain through x402. This will mark the moment when blockchain finds its second global product-market fit (PMF) after stablecoins.