Coinbase, among others, filled that gap in May 2025. Under x402, a server that wants payment responds to the request with a 402 and a value. The client signs a stablecoin transfer, usually USDC, resends the request with the payment attached, and receives the data. The exchange takes seconds and requires no account, no card, and no prior relationship between the two parties.
That’s why the AI industry cares. An autonomous agent can’t open a bank account, pass a credit check or sign a SaaS contract, but it can sign off on transactions. Google has added x402 to its agent payment protocol, and Cloudflare ships it in its agent toolkit.
The announcement did not include usage figures, although x402 publishes them on its homepage. The protocol handled approximately 75 million transactions over the past 30 days, or approximately 29 per second, moving approximately $24 million between approximately 94,000 buyers and 22,000 sellers.
This works out to an average payment of about 32 cents, meaning the machine-to-machine thesis works as designed, as no card network can profitably process such small fees.
Still, $24 million per month is a fraction of what any major member of x402 makes in a day.