NEW DELHI: Connectivity giant Cloudflare and crypto exchange Coinbase have joined forces to establish the x402 Foundation, a new initiative aimed at creating an open Internet standard for digital payments.
The foundation’s name draws from the long-standing HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response code, now being reimagined for the AI and agentic web era. Both companies say a consistent, open protocol is needed to allow seamless transactions across geographies, currencies, and methods—without any single entity holding control.
The x402 Foundation’s mission is to define a uniform framework for “Internet-native money.” This could make it simpler for developers to charge for API usage, creators to monetize content, and autonomous agents to execute payments.
Cloudflare has been exploring 402’s applications in MCP, AI agents, and content access monetization, while Coinbase has long worked on Internet payment standards. By pooling efforts, the two firms hope to set the groundwork for a payment layer as integral to the web’s next phase as protocols like HTTP and DNS are today.
