Does x402 have a token or an airdrop?

x402.org and Coinbase's x402 documentation describe a payment protocol and do not announce a token or an airdrop. Neither describes a token distribution. Sellers choose which assets they accept, and USDC is the most common one.

Which blockchains does x402 work with?

x402.org says the standard is not tied to one network and works with EVM-compatible chains, Solana and others, with stablecoins as the main use. Which networks a particular seller accepts depends on what that seller advertises and on the facilitator it uses.

Does a buyer need an account to pay with x402?

No. x402.org lists "zero friction" among its features and says no accounts or personal information are needed. A client that receives the payment request signs a payment and retries the request with proof of payment attached.

Is x402 ready for real payments?

x402.org states that the protocol is production-ready and has processed millions of transactions. Coinbase's documentation reports more than 100 million payments through its own service. Both statements come from the project's own sites, as of 28 October 2026.

Is x402 only for stablecoins?

Stablecoins are the primary use case, but x402.org says the standard can also be extended to traditional payment methods. The Linux Foundation's July 2026 announcement describes support for payment types ranging from cards to stablecoins under the foundation's governance.

Who sits on the x402 Foundation?

The foundation reports 40 member organizations. Its premier members are Adyen, Amazon Web Services, American Express, Circle, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Fiserv, Google, Mastercard, Monad Foundation, MoonPay, Ripple, Shopify, Solana Foundation, Stellar Development Foundation, Stripe and Visa.

What is x402? The HTTP 402 payment protocol explained

x402 is an open, vendor-neutral standard that lets a server charge for a request over plain HTTP. When a client asks for a paid resource without paying, the server replies with HTTP 402 and a price. The client pays, usually in stablecoins, and sends the request again. Coinbase created the protocol, and the x402 Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation, now stewards it. As of 28 October 2026, x402.org describes it as production-ready.

What is x402?

x402 is a payment standard that lives inside HTTP, the request and response exchange that websites and APIs already use. x402.org describes it as open and neutral, and says it is meant for API monetization, agentic commerce, paywalled content and any case where traditional payment methods are too slow or expensive.

The point of the design is to remove the sign-up step. Coinbase's documentation says an x402 service has no checkout page, card form or signup flow, and that the buyer can be a person or a machine, such as an agent paying for a tool call in the middle of a task. The status code it builds on is HTTP 402, which x402.org pairs with the words "Payment Required".

How does an x402 payment work?

An x402 payment adds a short exchange to an ordinary web request: the server names a price, the client settles it, and the content arrives in that same interaction. Coinbase's How x402 works page describes the flow, summarized here.

Stage	What happens
Ask	The client requests a resource.
Price	The server replies that payment is required, listing the amount, the recipient and the options it accepts.
Pay	The client signs a payment and repeats the request with proof attached.
Check and settle	The server relies on a facilitator to verify the payment and, after doing the work, to settle it.
Delivery	The server sends the resource and confirms the payment.

A facilitator is a service that verifies and settles payments for the seller, so the seller does not have to run that part itself. Coinbase operates one, the CDP Facilitator, which also runs OFAC and Know Your Transaction checks that decline payments involving sanctioned or high-risk addresses.

What can a seller charge, and in which assets?

A seller can price a route in several ways and accept several assets, because x402 fixes the handshake and leaves the payment rail open. The same exchange works across chains, including EVM networks and Solana. x402.org describes the standard as not tied to a network: it covers EVM-compatible chains and Solana, among others, with stablecoins as the main use.

Sellers decide which assets to take. USDC is the most common, and ERC-20 tokens on EVM networks and SPL tokens on Solana are all options. On pricing, Coinbase lists three models: a fixed price, a maximum that is authorized with only actual usage settled, or deferred settlement for a batch of payments. Each seller publishes the payment options it accepts in its 402 response, and the buyer selects one it supports.

Who built x402 and who uses it?

Coinbase created x402. The Linux Foundation's announcement describes the standard's governing body as initially developed by Coinbase, Cloudflare and Stripe, and Coinbase contributed the protocol to the Linux Foundation.

Backing now comes from a long member list. Since the foundation first announced its plans, 40 organizations have joined as members. The premier tier includes Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Cloudflare, Google, Circle, Amazon Web Services and Coinbase, among others. Membership shows institutional support for the standard; it is not a usage figure.

For usage, the published numbers come from Coinbase. Its developer documentation says its CDP service has handled over 100 million x402 payments, spread over Base and Solana. x402.org states that the protocol is production-ready and has processed millions of transactions.

How did the move to the Linux Foundation change x402?

The Linux Foundation set up the x402 Foundation as the neutral home for the protocol, and the operational launch followed on 14 July 2026, when the foundation became fully active under formal, open governance.

The code repository has a new address too. A commit message in the coinbase/x402 repository records that the repo moved from coinbase/x402 to x402-foundation/x402. The Linux Foundation's press release says the protocol will remain vendor neutral under this governance.

What does it cost to use x402?

The protocol itself charges nothing; costs come from the network and from whichever facilitator a seller picks. x402.org lists protocol fees as zero for both customer and merchant, and says the only charge is nominal payment network fees.

For Coinbase's hosted facilitator, the pricing as of 28 October 2026 is a free tier of 1,000 onchain transactions each month, then $0.001 for each further onchain transaction. Coinbase bases its fees on onchain activity rather than payment requests, and verification is always free. Sellers who want to try it can follow the seller quickstart, which starts on a testnet before moving to mainnet.