| # | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Polygon | 1.8M (21.3M ann.) | ▴ 50.0% | ▾ 63.8% | ▾ 16.8% | 38.7M |
| 2 | Coinbase | 650.6K (7.9M ann.) | ▴ 40.2% | ▴ 41.9% | ▾ 66.3% | 93.8M |
| 3 | PayAI | 467.5K (5.7M ann.) | ▾ 17.1% | ▾ 88.4% | ▴ 1755.7% | 56.1M |
| 4 | Dexter | 2.7K (32.5K ann.) | ▾ 53.8% | ▴ 5979.5% | ▾ 12.5% | 33.2M |
| 5 | Daydreams | 729 (8.9K ann.) | ▴ 247.5% | ▴ 56.8% | ▴ 51.9% | 11.8M |
| 6 | Virtuals Protocol | 10 (122 ann.) | ▾ 57.1% | ▾ 99.6% | ▴ 50.1% | 2.0M |
| Other | 58.3K (709.7K ann.) | ▾ 11.8% | ▾ 23.7% | ▾ 45.3% | 13.1M |
About x402
x402 is an open payment protocol incubated by Coinbase and Cloudflare. It allows websites and APIs to charge for access without requiring accounts or subscriptions. Humans and AI agents can pay for resources as they use them, typically through stablecoins settled onchain.
When a paid resource is requested, the service returns a machine-readable price. The buyer authorises the payment, retries the request, and receives the resource after the payment is verified.
This flow makes x402 suitable for pay-per-use services, micropayments, and agentic commerce across different networks and digital assets.
x402 Facilitators
Facilitators help services accept x402 payments by verifying payment authorisations and settling transactions onchain.
Paymentscan tracks activity across facilitators including Polygon, Coinbase, PayAI, Dexter, Virtuals Protocol, and Daydreams. Facilitators provide payment infrastructure, and are distinct from the buyers making payments and the sellers receiving them. Services can also operate their own facilitator or handle verification and settlement locally.
Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
The Machine Payments Protocol is an open standard co-authored by Tempo and Stripe. Like x402, it allows software to receive a payment request, authorise payment, and access a resource programmatically. MPP supports one-time charges, usage-based sessions, stablecoins, and other payment methods.
Frequently Asked Questions
Agentic payments are transactions initiated by autonomous software agents to purchase services such as data, computing power, model inference, or API access. x402 and MPP are two protocols that enable these payments.
No. Agentic payments are the broader category, while x402 is one protocol that can enable them. An x402 payment can also be made by a conventional application or human-operated client.
Not necessarily. One agent may use multiple addresses, while several agents or users may share one address. Onchain data also cannot determine whether an address is controlled autonomously or through a human-operated application.
A service responds to a request with an HTTP 402 Payment Required message containing its payment requirements. The buyer authorizes the payment and retries the request. After the payment is verified and settled, the service returns the requested resource.
Both protocols allow software to pay for services through an HTTP 402 Payment Required flow, but they use different formats and payment abstractions.
x402 defines payment requirements and signed payloads using network- and scheme-specific settlement logic, often handled by a facilitator. MPP uses HTTP authentication challenges, credentials, and receipts, separating payment methods from intents such as one-time charges and usage-based sessions.
They are separate standards, although some software tools and services support both.