Coinbase’s x402 Surge: Transactions Skyrocket by 10,000% in Just 30 Days

A digital payments protocol launched by Coinbase in May that allows AI agents to engage in stablecoin transactions online has experienced an over 10,000% surge in transaction activity within the past month.

At that moment, Coinbase stated that x402 rectifies “the internet’s initial error” by reviving the Internet Communication Protocol’s Hypertext Transfer Protocol 402 — or HTTP 402 — to devise a fluid payment system inherently linked to the internet.

This system enables AI — and humans — to make payments directly while interacting with a website or application: they request an item, receive an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” notification, and then dispatch a signed stablecoin payment, which x402 subsequently authenticates automatically. No credit cards are needed.

Between Oct. 14 and 20, there were nearly 500,000 x402 transactions, reflecting a 10,780% increase when compared to figures from four weeks prior, as reported by Dune Analytics data.

Transaction activity peaked on Friday, with additional Dune Analytics data indicating a striking 239,505 transactions were completed, while on Thursday, an unprecedented $332,000 in transaction volume was recorded.

This development follows tech-focused venture capital firm a16z’s cryptocurrency branch discussing agentic AI in its 2025 State of Crypto report released earlier this week — predicting that autonomous transactions may reach $30 trillion by 2030.

With no need for human involvement in managing API calls, storage, and computation, agentic AIs could facilitate everything from self-operating taxis covering their own expenses using stablecoins to applications that autonomously utilize stablecoins for permanent data storage, stated Coinbase developers Kevin Leffew and Lincoln Murr in August.