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- Coinbase releases x402, a gateway allowing easy payment over the HTTP protocol for humans and artificial agents.
- The x402 protocol reintroduces HTTP 402, addressing the issues associated with traditional payment methods.
- AI agents can transact directly with x402, and the system is automated to process payments instantly.
Coinbase, a leading digital currency exchange, announced its new payment system, known as x402, that aims to transform the world of online payments. The payment can be made directly over the HYPertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPs) to facilitate direct transactions between humans and AI agents. This is intended to launch a new set of services aimed at expanding the internet economy by delivering payments that are much faster than the existing systems.
On May 6, Coinbase reintroduced the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code that was not previously used. The company believes this protocol design would solve some of the problems associated with conventional payment channels. Such as credit cards and bank transfers created for the pre-Internet age. These older systems are slow, expensive, and geographically restricted to provide facilities in today’s fast-moving digital world.
Autonomous AI Transactions
The x402 protocol also aims to make transactions easy for humans and AI agents to perform. Real-time payments may be made using AI agents, who can thus entirely transact without the intervention of a human agent. By this protocol, AI agents will have the ability to acquire paid content rather than hardware and even make micropayments for very specialized data services, all without any direct human intervention.
Source: Coinbase
Coinbase’s head of engineering for the Developer Platform, Erik Reppel, noted that the x402 protocol is the company’s addition towards the creation of an economy based on people and software. We are setting the stage for an economy led not by human beings but by software, smart, self-learning, and 24/7, Reppel said. This vision is to facilitate an ‘Internet Economy’ that will reap more benefits by providing an economic environment. That is free of expensive centralized payment systems.
Coinbase Drives Developer Innovation
The new protocol will be introduced by Coinbase in partnership with cloud services provider Amazon Web Services (AWS). The stablecoin issuer Circle, AI corporation Anthropic, and the proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain project Near Protocol. This collaboration aims to address how AI systems could interact with digitalized financial assets. Newly developed AI agents can engage in transactions independently by ordering resources and paying for services.
For developers, x402 opens up a new way to monetize APIs, introduce software unlocks, and implement dynamically calculated prices based on consumption. It will also benefit content creators because they can monetize their content. Not necessarily coupled with subscription or credit card fees. Specifically, the x402 solution from Coinbase is the next step toward a new form of digital payments. Since it is capable of improving payments and equipping its AI agents.
