Cardano joins Solana, XRP Ledger in race to power AI agent payments

Cardano has been added to the official x402 software kit, giving developers the code needed to let an app or AI agent pay for an online service using ADA or tokens issued on the network.

x402 turns the web’s largely unused “402 Payment Required” response into a checkout built directly into an internet request. A service sends back its price and payment instructions, the agent signs a payment and receives the requested data or computing power after the transaction is verified.

That means an agent preparing a report could buy a single dataset when it needs it, without a person opening an account, entering card details or paying for a monthly subscription.

Coinbase created x402 in 2025 before contributing it to a Linux Foundation-backed organization whose members include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google and Amazon Web Services. Solana, the XRP Ledger and several Ethereum-compatible networks already support the standard.

Cardano Foundation engineers began with a specification accepted in June, then built the client and server software needed to request payments alongside a so-called facilitator that verifies and submits them. The initial release supports TypeScript, with Python planned next.