x402 upgrades to V2 to “support single format cross-chain”. How does Coinbase create fully automated payments for AI agents?
Coinbase launches x402 V2. The new cross-chain experience brings the HTTP 402 status code that has been dormant for 30 years back to reality, allowing AI agents to settle accounts between the chain and the bank system in milliseconds, paving a financial highway for the machine economy.
(Previous summary: Stripe announced the acquisition of the encrypted wallet Valora, with the intention of promoting the stablecoin network Tempo)
(Background supplement: "Tether's son" Stable stablecoin chain overturned at the opening, falling 60% from its high point and falling into a trust crisis)
The network code that has been dormant for 30 years has finally awakened. Coinbase officially launched x402 V2 on the developer platform on Thursday (11th), allowing the originally idle HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code to find an actual landing point for the first time, paving a financial highway for AI agents that extends from the Base chain to bank accounts and settles in milliseconds.
HTTP 402 is resurrected, AI payments are no longer blocked
In the past six months, the x402 protocol has completed more than 100 million transactions, indicating that a high-speed and intensive "machine-to-machine" (M2M) economy is forming between AI and AI. Humans can still accept forms, captchas, and batch settlements, but for AI agents who need to automatically purchase data sets within 200 milliseconds, the latency of traditional payment paths is like a speed bump in the desert.
x402 V2 makes this friction disappear, making HTTP 402 a truly usable Internet language. The core highlight of the new version is "hybrid compatibility". V2 uses a unified interface to support both high-performance blockchains such as Base and Solana and traditional banking networks such as ACH and automatic deductions. Developers do not need to write additional logic for different payment tracks. Coinbase emphasized in the document:
x402 will be launched in May 2025. Its concept is simple: take advantage of the long-idle 402 status code and embed payments directly into the HTTP protocol. The V2 version is based on x402's actual payment codes in the past 6 months, embedding payments directly into the HTTP protocol. The V2 version is based on the actual payment code of x402 in the past 6 months. Developers now only need one line of middleware code to achieve default multi-chain and fiat currency compatibility...
This creates a single payment format that can run across chains and is compatible with traditional payment channels
For those who want to operate multinational AI services, this line of code is like the Rosetta Stone in the financial world, making the flow of value as intuitive as the transmission of information.
Infrastructure test under 100 million micropayments
Behind the huge traffic is a strict test of stability. Coinbase has in-depth cooperation with Cloudflare and Circle, using USDC stable currency and cryptographic signature technology to compress settlement time to the millisecond level while maintaining bank-level reliability. This set of designs supports multiple business models such as API pay-per-use, usage pricing, and subscription systems, and provides AI agents with exclusive "wallets" and "bank accounts."
The debut of V2 coincides with the shift in U.S. policy. After President Trump returns to the White House in 2025, Washington has shown a more open attitude towards encryption innovation, allowing Coinbase to accelerate the promotion of "TradFi + DeFi" hybrid infrastructure. The newly added "payTo" dynamic routing function allows companies to set charging rules as intuitively as pulling a web page component; future paywalls will no longer block humans, but will allow machines to complete handshakes and checkouts behind each other's backs.
x402 V2 is not only a protocol upgrade, but also lays the foundation for the next generation of machine economy. For investors and architects, access to this financial highway has changed from “whether” to “when”. When AI can consume and exchange resources autonomously, the Internet will advance from an information network to a value network, and new GDP growth points will be born.
