Everything You Need to Know about x402: The 30-Year-Old HTTP Code Built for the AI Economy

Description

Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform, joins the Consensus mainstage to make the case for internet-native payments. The internet was built for humans, but AI agents are taking over and they don't click ads. x402 is an open standard that finally gives the web a native payment layer, built on a forgotten HTTP status code that's been sitting unused since 1994. Created by Reppel and now backed by Visa, Stripe, Cloudflare, Microsoft, and others under the Linux Foundation, it lets any agent pay for any content or API with two lines of code and a stablecoin transaction that costs less than a cent. - Timecodes: 00:00 - Erik from x402 at Consensus Miami 2026 00:48 - The Internet Was Designed for Humans, Not Agents 03:53 - AI Is about to Break the Internet's Economic Model 05:03 - Defining What an Agent Actually Is 08:59 - Open Protocols vs Walled Gardens 12:21 - x402: An Open Standard for Internet Native Payments 15:02 - Why Now Is the Right Time for Agentic Payments - #cryptocurrency #digitalfinance #finance #bitcoin #crypto Subscribe to CoinDesk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CoinDesk?sub_confirmation=1 CoinDesk is the leading digital media, events and information services company for the crypto asset and blockchain technology community. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/coindesk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coindesk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coindesk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoinDesk Newsletters: https://www.coindesk.com/newsletters CoinDesk Podcast Network: https://open.spotify.com/show/2jyIhkvAQhed8AWDZiPpSP Public Keys: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rqYzRV10nfKfoTpFXZhTE Markets Daily Crypto Roundup: https://open.spotify.com/show/7sDXM8BlxsUqzL2IqmLqwE The Policy Protocol: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Fh8ffulAWcCqMu0uVuwoj