What is the x402 protocol, like a 30 times larger inscription golden dog?

Original title: What is the x402 protocol, a big golden dog 30 times the size of an inscription?

Original author: Cookie

Source:

Reprinted: Mars Finance

Yesterday, a special golden dog was born on Base, and it is $PING. Based on the cost of the new issuance and the current coin price, a successful Mint yields about 18 times profit.

The special thing about $PING is that its minting will remind people of the inscriptions from 2 years ago. The cost to mint $PING is approximately 1 dollar, and if successful, you can obtain 5000 $PING. Moreover, the page for minting $PING , like the inscriptions from back then, does not have an exquisite front-end page and appears rather hardcore.

This is the first token issued through the x402 protocol. So, what is the x402 protocol? Why is the minting process of $PING so special? What is the current ecological situation of this protocol?

What is the x402 protocol?

x402 is an open payment protocol developed by Coinbase that enables AI agents to autonomously complete transactions.

The x402 protocol utilizes the long-standing “HTTP 402 'Payment Required'” status code, which has been in a “reserved” state, to require payment in order to complete API requests or load web pages. If an API request is missing payment information, x402 will return an HTTP 402 status code, prompting the client to pay and retry the request.

The workflow diagram below intuitively explains the operation process of the x402 protocol:

The user makes a request to Claude, “Using my Coinbase wallet, help me purchase a pair of jeans on Amazon.” After receiving the request, the AI initiates a purchase request to Amazon, which then constructs a preliminary transaction, including the wallet address to be used, the chain to be used, the currency, and the specific amount. After the AI receives this, it sends the transaction to the validator of the x402 protocol to check if there are sufficient assets in the corresponding wallet on the corresponding chain, if the goods are tradable, and if the user has confirmed authorization. Once all is completed, the amount and payment proof are sent to the merchant's address. At this point, the transaction is complete.

Overall, the HTTP 402 status code serves as a “communication” function in the protocol to indicate whether a transaction is successful. Coinbase has built upon this status code and added the functionality of using blockchain for payments, resulting in the x402 protocol.

It sounds simple, but from the above protocol process, there are 2 points that are exciting. First, the channels for using on-chain assets for actual payments are further simplified; users do not need to convert their assets into fiat currency for consumption, but can directly use USDT, USDC, or even other on-chain assets for spending. However, the key point is that this needs to be widely implemented, with enough merchants adopting support.

Any Web API or content provider (crypto or Web2) that wants to offer a low-cost, frictionless payment path for micropayments or usage-based transactions can integrate x402.

The second point is the AI Agent. As a payer/receiver, the AI Agent is quite compatible with blockchain payments, as AI Agents do not naturally have bank or payment app accounts like humans do through KYC. With the continuous improvement of AI Agent intelligence, some novel consumption experiences or on-chain experiences are also worth looking forward to.

The workflow also explains why the minting process of $PING is like an inscription, as it requires confirmation from the x402 validator. During the minting process, a large number of minting requests not only overwhelmed the minting interface time and again but also gave the x402 protocol a real pressure test for the first time.

This is the first time in nearly half a year that the x402 protocol has become so lively and well-known. Regardless of the chain or protocol, the issuance of new assets has always been a lasting hotspot in the cryptocurrency world.

x402 Ecosystem Overview

So, besides $PING, what other projects under the x402 protocol are worth paying attention to?

The Ecosystem page on the official website of the x402 protocol has a summary of current projects. If you click into each project, you'll feel that this protocol is still in a quite early stage of development. There are quite a few that lead directly to technical documents or redirect to GitHub projects.

Here we summarize some projects that already have tokens or are about to issue tokens.

Questflow

Multiple AI Agent work sorting layers allow multiple AI Agents to autonomously coordinate and execute tasks. Announced in July this year, it completed a $6.5 million seed round funding, led by cyber•Fund, with participation from Delphi Labs, Systemic Ventures, Eden Block, HashKey Capital, Animoca Brands, Tezos, and received grants from Coinbase Developer Platform, Aptos, and Virtuals.

There is currently no official token, but last December, we launched $SANTA in collaboration with Virtuals, an autonomous Agent cluster built using Questflow's QDP (Questflow Developer Platform) and MAOP (Multi-Agent Orchestration Protocol).

The current market value of $SANTA is approximately 4.5 million USD.

AurraCloud

AI Agent infrastructure for crypto-native applications. Capable of immediately hosting AI Agents using OpenAI-compatible APIs or MCP servers, and monetizing AI through the on-chain x402 protocol on Base.

In addition, the project also provided x402 verification services at the beginning of this month.

The token $AURA was launched through Virtuals and currently has a market value of approximately 1.6 million dollars.

Meridian

Incubated by uOS, providing multi-chain settlement and custody services for the x402 protocol.

The market value of the token $MRDN is currently about 1.5 million USD.

PayAI

Provides multi-chain x402 payment services support, including Solana, and also offers x402 verification services.

The token $PAYAI currently has a market value of approximately 5 million dollars.

Daydreams

Support for application and AI Agent x402's LLM inference process. At the same time, building Lucid—a platform where anyone can deploy Daydreams Agent to solve problems, users sign transactions with x402 to pay in USDC, while Agents can pay each other for access.

The token $dreams currently has a market value of approximately 6.7 million USD.

Gloria AI

A real-time news platform designed for traders, creators, AI Agents, and automated systems, which can be accessed via x402 by paying for services with $GLORIA .

The current market value of the token $GLORIA is approximately 1.65 million USD.

Kite AI

Kite AI builds the “Intelligent Agent Internet (Agentic Internet)” foundational trading layer, providing a unified identity, payment, and governance infrastructure for autonomous intelligent agents. What Kite AI is doing is highly relevant to x402; it was mentioned as supporting x402 as early as July, and it can be considered the only project in the x402 ecosystem that can be classified as a “chain.”

On September 2, according to Fortune, Kite AI announced the completion of a total financing of $33 million, with the latest Series A funding amounting to $18 million, led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, with participation from 8VC, Samsung Next, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Dispersion Capital, Alumni Ventures, Avalanche Foundation, GSR Markets, LayerZero, Animoca Brands, Essence VC, and Alchemy.

Kite AI has not issued tokens yet, but it recently launched the Kite Foundation X account, which will definitely issue tokens and should be soon. The currently tradable related asset is the officially launched FLY THE KITE NFT, with a floor price of 0.375 ETH.

Conclusion

In September this year, Coinbase and Cloudflare announced the joint establishment of the x402 Foundation to promote protocol development. While there are some similar competitors, such as bitGPT's h402 and Radius's EVMAuth, there is no doubt that x402 has the strongest background and the highest level of attention.

If the market value of $PING increases significantly in the next period, x402 will gain more market attention. This is not only good for meme coins, but also a positive development for infrastructure projects.