Coinbase's X402 Surpasses $50B in Stablecoin Transactions
X402, an open payment protocol developed by Coinbase, has processed $50 billion in stablecoin transactions across 200 million payments. This feat underscores its utility for agentic commerce, which is powered by AI agents making direct payments using stablecoins.
The protocol leverages the rarely-used HTTP 402 status code to enable seamless micropayments for APIs, web services, and other digital tools. Stablecoins are central to X402's functionality, with Solana boasting over $15 billion in circulating stablecoins and facilitating $10 trillion in transfers as of August 2026.
X402 enables AI agents to evaluate costs and pay for resources like API calls or content access in real time, removing the friction of manual payments. The protocol has gained traction across major internet services, with Cloudflare, Stripe, and AWS referencing it in their documentation.