X Pay launches USDC micropayments for AI agents

The funding and the objective

On October 23, 2026, startup X Pay announced a one-million-dollar funding round to develop a payment layer dedicated to autonomous agents and APIs. The funding comes from unnamed investors, against a backdrop in which major companies such as Coinbase, Google, Visa and Stripe have been working on similar solutions for more than a year. X Pay's stated objective is to allow each API request to be settled instantly in a stablecoin, without prior registration or an API key to distribute.

This approach seeks to meet a specific need of AI agents, which can call an API several times per second, generating prohibitive costs when using traditional card networks. By charging for each call at a fraction of a cent, X Pay hopes to make large-scale machine use of APIs economically viable while retaining the traceability and speed of blockchain settlement.

The technical mechanism

The protocol relies on HTTP status code 402, long inactive since its creation in 1997 under the name “Payment Required.” Using the open x402 standard published by Coinbase in May 2025, the server indicates the price, the agent signs a USDC payment on the Base chain and the server then delivers the requested resource. The entire process takes place within a few seconds, without the end user opening a bank account or providing card details.

X Pay also relies on the AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol) launched by Google in September 2025, which integrates x402 and stablecoin settlement. Other players such as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe have developed their own payment components for agents, but their models remain based on conventional card fees, making microtransactions much more expensive than the model proposed by X Pay.

Economic implications and limitations

The cost of transferring USDC on Base is less than one tenth of a cent, compared with several tens of cents for the minimum card debit. This price difference creates a competitive advantage for services charging per call, particularly price data feeds or document databases consulted at scale. However, the model depends on the stability of USDC and the availability of liquidity on the chosen network.

X Pay has no connection with X Money, Elon Musk's payment service, and fixed fees of $0.30 plus a 2.9% commission remain applicable to each transaction. If call volumes increase sharply, these fees can become a limiting factor. Furthermore, dependence on a stablecoin exposes users to depegging risks and the compliance requirements specific to each issuer.