Coinbase and Cloudflare Unveil x402 Foundation to Power AI Payment Standard

September 23, 2025

Details

  • Coinbase and Cloudflare have launched the x402 Foundation to establish a universal standard for AI-driven payments, announced on September 23, 2025.
  • The x402 Foundation leverages the HTTP "402 Payment Required" status code, creating a protocol for seamless financial transactions between AI agents, businesses, and users, moving beyond traditional payment intermediaries.
  • The framework supports stablecoin-based, real-time transactions for pay-per-use AI services, data access, creator micropayments, and commerce between autonomous agents.
  • This initiative is designed for the agentic economy, where machine-to-machine payments are increasingly necessary as AI agents gain autonomy and handle more complex transactions.
  • Cloudflare plans to implement x402 in its pay-per-crawl beta, while the foundation seeks to broaden its membership to include AI firms, e-commerce platforms, and developer communities adopting the new protocol.

Impact

The x402 Foundation signals a major step toward standardizing seamless digital payments tailored for the AI-driven economy. By targeting frictionless, microtransaction-enabled commerce, Coinbase and Cloudflare could challenge the limits of legacy payment providers and open new revenue streams for digital services. This development adds momentum to a growing movement for smarter, more interoperable payments in the age of autonomous systems.

Read more