July 2026 — Four protocols enabling AI agents to pay for services. All live, processing real transactions.
Backed by: Linux Foundation, Coinbase, AWS, Cloudflare, Stripe, Google, Visa, Mastercard — 40+ members. Foundation launched July 14, 2026.
Settlement: USDC on Base (200ms–2s). 110M+ transactions, $15M+ on-chain volume across Base, Solana, Polygon + XRPL.
How: HTTP 402 Payment Required → agent pays USDC on-chain → retries with proof → gets resource. No accounts, no API keys, no KYC.
Marketplaces: Agentic.Market (Coinbase), minia2a.uk (independent, 150+ services, 6 chains).
Backed by: Stripe, Tempo Labs. Launched March 2026.
Settlement: Hybrid USDC + fiat via Shared Payment Tokens. Sub-second finality on Tempo L1.
Best for: Enterprise, streaming payments, compliance-heavy use cases.
Backed by: Lightning Labs. Protocol dates to March 2020.
Settlement: Bitcoin Lightning Network (under 1 second).
Bridge: Cinderwright bridges x402 ↔ L402 — 2,800+ services indexed across protocols.
Backed by: Google.
Settlement: Verifiable Digital Credentials ("Mandates") proving user consent.
Best for: Enterprise, consent-based authorization, identity-first payments.
Backed by: Mastercard. Launched June 2026.
Settlement: Multi-rail — payment cards, bank accounts, and stablecoins via 30+ partners including Stripe, Coinbase, OKX, Polygon Labs.
How: Verifiable Intent framework — credentials AI agents, enforces spending limits and authorization rules. Permissions recorded on Polygon, Solana, and Base.
Best for: Sub-cent micropayments, enterprise M2M, 24/7 autonomous device-to-device transactions.