The Linux Foundation recently officially announced that the x402 Foundation, which is led and operated by it, has been officially launched. This move further expands the organization's influence outside the traditional open source field. The core goal of the x402 Foundation is to develop standardized specifications for Internet-native payments for AI agents and related applications.
The project’s core technology, the x402 protocol, was contributed by Coinbase and handed over to this new open governance body. The original design intention of the x402 protocol is to seamlessly integrate payment functions directly into HTTP web page interactions, thereby enabling AI agents, applications and various APIs to conduct fund transactions more conveniently and securely.
The x402 Foundation not only receives strong support from the Linux Foundation, but also has the endorsement of many leading companies in the industry, including Amazon Cloud Technology (AWS), American Express (American Express), Cloudflare, Google (Google), Mastercard (Mastercard), Stripe and Visa, etc. The joining of these institutions has laid a solid foundation for the promotion and implementation of the agreement.
In terms of technical features, the x402 protocol advocates the vision of "zero fees, zero waiting, zero friction, zero centralization and zero restrictions". Developers can obtain detailed protocol documents, code samples and more technical details through the project official website. As AI agents are increasingly used in automated services, the x402 protocol is expected to solve the compatibility and friction issues currently existing in the automated payment process through standardized means and build a new payment infrastructure for the digital economy in the AI era.