Cardano Joins Solana, XRP in AI Payments Standard as ADA Surges 8%
Cardano's ADA token has surged 8% over the past 24 hours as it joins Solana and XRP in supporting AI payments through the x402 software kit. The x402 standard, created by Coinbase in 2025 and now managed by a Linux Foundation-backed organization, allows AI agents to make direct payments for services using ADA or other Cardano native tokens.
The integration of x402 with Cardano's ecosystem was made possible after the specification was accepted in June. According to the Cardano Foundation, developers can start integrating now, although agents are not yet paying for commercial services at scale. The foundation has posted on X that any app or AI agent can pay for an API call in ADA without requiring an account, API key, or checkout page.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson predicts that crypto will 'eat' AI within five to ten years, citing the ability of crypto to solve payments, alignment, and data provenance problems. Hoskinson's reasoning suggests that decentralized AI systems are more efficient and secure than centralized ones.