XRP Ledger Surpasses 10M x402 Payments in Record Time

The XRP Ledger has surpassed 10 million x402 payments in less than three months since crossing its first 1 million payment milestone. According to J. Ayo Akinyele, RippleX's Head of Engineering, this achievement is largely due to the growing use of AI agents on the network.

Akinyele attributes the sharp increase in activity to AI agents' ability to find services, make payments, and access digital resources without human intervention. The rising level of automation is helping expand machine-to-machine payments on the XRP Ledger.

The x402 protocol, developed by Coinbase, allows instant payments through HTTP by bringing back the long-unused 'Payment Required' status code. This enables AI agents to pay for digital services as easily as they exchange data, removing the need for accounts, API keys, and human approval for each payment.