x402
An open protocol that uses the HTTP 402 Payment Required status to let servers and AI agents request and receive on-chain payments inline with requests.
- glossary
x402 is an open protocol that revives the long-dormant HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code as a structured way for servers, agents, and clients to demand and pay for on-chain payments inline with normal HTTP interactions. When a resource is gated by x402, a 402 response carries the price, the accepted assets (typically stablecoins), the recipient address, and the facilitator URL; the client pays on-chain and retries the request with proof of payment. x402 matters to tokenized domains because it lets agents and apps using a domain as their identity collect payments cleanly — and because the controlling wallet of a tokenized domain doubles as a payment endpoint. See Route 402 for the deeper write-up. Official site: x402.org.
Related keywords
- x402
- HTTP 402
- payment required
- on-chain payments
- agent payments
- crypto payments
- micropayment
Contributors
Namefi is a collective of engineers, designers, and operators who obsess over building tools that make managing your onchain domain names effortless.
Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.
His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.
For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.