Despite lagging behind its competitors in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, Cardano (ADA) has taken an important step towards integrating artificial intelligence and blockchain.
The project’s developers have begun integrating the x402 payment standard developed by Coinbase into the Cardano network. This step aims to enable artificial intelligence (AI) agents to make on-chain payments using ADA and USDM stablecoins.
The Masumi blockchain team, operating within the ADA ecosystem, is leading the implementation of the system. ADA founder Charles Hoskinson called the development a “huge step for Cardano” in a post on the X Platform.
The x402 protocol allows bots or AI-based agents to manage on-chain transactions without centralized control or human intervention.
By integrating this technology into Cardano, AI agents will be able to automatically perform complex DeFi transactions such as token swaps, staking, and lending. This is considered an important step towards full automation of smart contracts on the network.
Despite ADA’s $24 billion market cap, the DeFi ecosystem has only $322 million in assets locked (TVL), which is behind major networks such as Ethereum and Solana, as well as layer 2 networks such as Base and Optimism.
Hoskinson has long expressed his dissatisfaction with Cardano’s DeFi growth. He criticized the Cardano Foundation for being “slow and inefficient” and said the foundation had spent $15 million in 2024 to expand its network activities, but failed to achieve the expected impact.
In October, the Cardano community approved a $33 million ADA fund to increase liquidity for DeFi stablecoins.
Despite this, Cardano’s stablecoin market capitalization is only around $36 million. For comparison, Ethereum has a market cap of about $164 billion and Tron has a market cap of about $79 billion.
*This is not investment advice.
