Coinbase’s AI-driven x402 payment protocol is poised to become an open, standardized infrastructure under the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit platform for open source software development. The move aims to create a community-run ecosystem for high-frequency micro-transactions that traditional finance cannot handle effectively.
The protocol has formed an initial governing body, the x402 Foundation, which includes internet services company Cloudflare and payments giant Stripe, with support from a long list of other big players.
Industry interest in the X402 comes as AI-based commerce grows. In particular, so-called agent payments, executed autonomously by AI agents, are a hot topic, especially in some areas of the crypto industry, where programmable blockchain-based micropayments are believed to make the most sense.
x402 is designed for these payments. Unlike using ChatGPT as an interface for a traditional shopping cart, it can handle transactions worth just fractions of a cent at high frequency – something traditional credit card networks struggle to handle.
Now, using the Linux Foundation to scale an open source ecosystem, x402 aims to address potential interoperability issues by creating an AI commerce equivalent to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the standard technology that encrypts the connection between a web server and a browser.
“The Internet was built on open protocols,” said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. “The x402 Foundation will create an open, community-run space to develop these capabilities in the open, ensuring they scale with transparency, interoperability, and broad participation across the entire ecosystem. »
Coinbase said in a press release on Thursday that additional foundation members would consist of participants from multiple verticals, with initial intent and support expressed by Adyen, Amazon Web Services, American Express, Ampersend.ai, Ant International, Base, Circle, Fiserv Merchant Solutions, Google, KakaoPay, Mastercard, Merit Systems, Microsoft, Polygon Labs, PPRO, Sierra. Shopify, Solana Foundation, Thirdweb and Visa.
“The transition to agent commerce requires a cloud infrastructure that is as open as the protocols it supports,” said James Tromans, general manager of Web3 and digital assets at Google Cloud. By joining the x402 Foundation, Google strengthens its commitment to interoperable standards that enable secure AI-driven transactions across all platforms.
