TLDR Tech / Crypto
Visa, Mastercard, and Ripple Back x402
The Linux Foundation launched the x402 Foundation with 40 member companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Ripple, American Express, Stripe, Google, AWS, and the Solana and Stellar foundations, formalizing a stablecoin payment standard Coinbase originally built. The protocol activates HTTP's dormant 402 "Payment Required" response code, enabling direct USDC transfers between clients and servers without accounts or prior relationships, settling in seconds. Over the past 30 days, the network processed 75 million transactions totaling $24 million at an average of 32 cents per payment, with approximately 94,000 buyers and 22,000 sellers transacting at 29 TPS. The design targets autonomous AI agents, which cannot open bank accounts or sign traditional contracts but can execute blockchain transactions, making x402 suited for agent-to-agent commerce at transaction sizes card networks cannot serve at a profit.
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