Coinbase x402 transactions increase 10,000% in 1 month

The online payments protocol that Coinbase introduced in May, which allows AI agents to trade in stablecoins over the internet, has increased trading activity by more than 10,000% in the last month.

Coinbase said at the time that x402 corrects “the first mistake of the Internet” by reinstating the Internet communications protocol Hypertext Transfer Protocol 402 (or HTTP 402) and creating a seamless payment system native to the Internet.

AI and humans can make payments directly while using a website or app. The AI ​​requests something, receives an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” prompt, and sends a signed stablecoin payment. This is automatically verified by x402. No credit card required.

According to data from Dune Analytics, there were nearly 500,000 x402 transactions between October 14 and 20, an increase of 10,780% compared to levels four weeks ago.

Transaction activity increased further on Friday, with a record 239,505 transactions, according to other Dune Analytics data, and Thursday saw a record transaction volume of $332,000.

This comes after the crypto arm of technology-focused venture capital firm a16z mentioned agent AI in its 2025 State of Cryptocurrency report released earlier this week, predicting that autonomous transactions could reach $30 trillion by 2030.

Coinbase development team members Kevin Leffrew and Lincoln Marr said in August that agent AI could enable everything from self-driving taxis that pay for themselves with stablecoins to apps that automatically use stablecoins to store data forever, without requiring human intervention to manage API calls, storage, and computation.