AI Agents Drive Crypto Payments Demand, x402 Processes 165M Transactions

Gate News message, April 27 — Jesse Pollak, an executive at a major CEX, has argued that autonomous AI agents are creating a new "demand center" for crypto payments, requiring software-native payment infrastructure. On April 20, it was announced that the x402 ecosystem had processed more than 165 million transactions and over US$50 million in volume across 480,000 transacting agents.

x402 is an open payment protocol that revives HTTP 402 Payment Required, enabling developers and AI agents to pay for digital services directly over HTTP using stablecoins. Unlike traditional account-based models, the protocol removes complex authentication flows and replaces them with a simple request-payment-verification loop. Pollak stated that autonomous software can already reason, call tools and coordinate workflows, but cannot function at scale without the ability to hold assets, make payments and settle obligations without human intervention.

The ecosystem is already being used for API services, digital content, paywalls and autonomous agent purchases, signaling the sector's evolution from payment infrastructure toward a broader marketplace for agent services.