Visa, Mastercard and Ripple back x402 as agent payments average 32 cents

TechVisa, Mastercard and Ripple back x402 as agent payments average 32 centsForty companies now govern x402, the protocol Coinbase built and handed away. It settled about $24 million last month across 75 million payments.By Shaurya MalwaUpdated Jul 15, 2026, 6:06 a.m. Published Jul 15, 2026, 6:05 a.m. 2 min readMake preferred on ShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailMake preferred on SummaryShowThe Linux Foundation has formally launched the x402 Foundation, backed by major card networks and tech firms, to standardize internet-native payments between software agents.The x402 protocol activates the long-reserved HTTP 402 “Payment Required” code to let clients pay servers directly with small stablecoin transfers, typically USDC, without accounts or prior relationships.X402 processed about 75 million transactions totaling $24 million over the past 30 days, mostly sub-dollar payments that enable machine-to-machine commerce but still represent a tiny volume compared with traditional payment networks.Every major card network has signed on to a payment standard built so that software can pay software without a human involved.The Linux Foundation said Tuesday that the x402 Foundation is now operating under formal governance with 40 members, and that Coinbase's contribution of the protocol is complete. Premier members include Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Adyen, Fiserv, Shopify, Google, Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare, alongside Circle, MoonPay and the Solana and Stellar foundations.The protocol fills in a thirty-year-old loose end. When the web's architects wrote the rules for how browsers and servers talk to each other, they set aside a response code numbered ‘402’ and labeled it "Payment Required," expecting someone would eventually build payments into the web itself.Card fees made charging a fraction of a cent pointless, so the web eventually monetized through ads, subscriptions and API keys instead, and 402 sat …

Visa, Mastercard and Ripple back x402 as agent payments average 32 cents

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