Coinbase and others closed that gap in May 2025. In x402, the server asking for payment responds to the request with a 402 and a price. The client signs the stablecoin transfer (usually USDC), attaches the payment, resubmits the request, and retrieves the data. The exchange takes seconds and requires no account, no card, and no prior relationship between the parties.
That’s why the AI industry is paying attention. Autonomous agents cannot open bank accounts, pass credit checks, or sign SaaS contracts, but they can sign transactions. Google connects x402 to its proprietary agent payments protocol, and Cloudflare ships it with its agent toolkit.
The announcement did not include usage figures, but x402 publishes usage figures on its homepage. The protocol has processed approximately 75 million transactions over the past 30 days, or approximately 29 transactions per second, with approximately $24 million in transactions between approximately 94,000 buyers and 22,000 sellers.
This equates to an average payout of approximately 32 cents. This means that the machine-to-machine theory works as designed because no card network can handle such small charges favorably.
Still, $24 million per month is a fraction of what x402’s Premier members move in a day.
