HTTP gave us data. HTTPS gave us security. HTTP 402 will give the internet a bank account. And it’s happening under one name: x402. Here’s why it’s bigger than crypto or AI 🧵👇

The internet has always enabled instant data transfer. Text. Images. Videos. All of it flows freely at the speed of light. But money? Money has always needed middlemen. x402 changes that. It teaches the internet how to move money on its own. Without the help of banks or processors.

The technical foundation is brilliantly simple. HTTP 402 "Payment Required" has existed since the 1990s. Reserved but never implemented. Coinbase activated it in May 2025 alongside Cloudflare.

The idea: A website, API, or AI model can now speak money the same way it speaks data. It can say: “This request costs 0.01 USDC.” Your system pays on the spot. In seconds, verified on-chain. Zero human touch.

This matters a lot because we are not gonna be alone on the next internet. AI agents are coming online by the millions. Right now, an AI agent that wants to access an API needs: An account that someone manually created A credit card someone attached Approval workflows someone designed That model dies with x402.

The protocol itself is an open standard, managed by the x402 Foundation (Coinbase and Cloudflare). We see three critical utility layers being built: Marketplaces where agents buy/sell services. Compute/Data Hubs where agents pay for resources. Foundation Protocols for agent identity and orchestration. This is why the biggest players are integrating it. They see the future transaction volume.

And this isn't just Coinbase. Google is integrating it through their AP2 protocol. AWS is testing pilots. Visa is running programs. Singapore's central bank is exploring it. The coalition is massive. They know the $30 TRILLION agent economy projected by 2030 needs a new financial logic.

The x402 Ecosystem is a new category emerging right now. It is where you should look for the next wave of value. The tokens focus on building the utility agents need to transact. They are the new service providers for the autonomous economy.

x402 already runs on Base (Coinbase’s L2), Solana, Polygon, NEAR, and peaq. The early ecosystem is already forming. Tokens like $PING, $HEU, $PAYAI, $SANTA, $MRDN, $DREAMS. $HEU from @heurist_ai processes thousands of transactions daily. $PAYAI ( @PayAINetwork) runs a live agent marketplace…42,000 transactions since July. $DREAMS ( @daydreamsagents ) handles 1.3 million AI model calls per month. Each represents a different piece of the x402 machine.

x402 does not just make crypto useful. It makes money native to the internet itself. Coinbase, Cloudflare, Google, and Visa commit resources together; you're watching standard formation. By 2030, you won’t ask if a website accepts x402; you’ll assume it does. You’ll pay for what you use, transparently and instantly. And AI agents will handle most of it for you.