A closer look at “x402: The Forgotten 1994 HTTP Code Powering the New AI Economy”, exactly as the source publishes it. Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at the Coinbase Developer Platform, presents the case for x402, an open standard aimed at establishing a native payment layer for the internet. While the current web was built primarily for human interaction and advertising revenue, the rise of AI agents creates a fundamental problem: machines do not click ads. To address this, x402 utilizes a long-ignored HTTP status code that has sat unused since 1994, repurposing it to serve as the foundation for machine-to-machine financial transactions.
This initiative is not a solo venture but a broad industry collaboration. Currently backed by major corporations including Visa, Stripe, Cloudflare, and Microsoft, the project operates under the Linux Foundation to ensure it remains a neutral and open standard. For the complete material, the listing points back to the source inside the network.