Block Joins x402 with Bitcoin Lightning Support
Block has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the open payment protocol. This move expands Block's push into payments for AI agents, which will allegedly make billions of small payments once the rails are in place.
The integration adds Bitcoin Lightning support to the x402 payment standard, originally created by Coinbase and now housed under the Linux Foundation. The standard lets software request and settle payments during a web interaction using the HTTP 402 'Payment Required' response code.
x402 is an open payment protocol that was contributed to the Linux Foundation in April. It has been backed by companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Coinbase, Solana Foundation, and now Block. The x402 ecosystem still dominates stablecoins, with USDC accounting for 99.3% of x402 payment volume in its second quarter.