XDC Network Taps Coinbase's x402 to Teach AI Agents How to Actually Pick Up the Tab

XDC Network is building on Coinbase's x402 payment standard to give autonomous AI agents a way to settle transactions in stablecoins, the Layer-1 blockchain said this week. The integration pairs x402 with gasless USDC settlement, allowing AI agents to pay per API call or service without covering network fees themselves.

XDC Network co-founder Ritesh Kakkad described the effort on LinkedIn as "building the actual rails" for agentic commerce, enabling AI agents to "autonomously pay per API call, book services, and settle trades in real-time at sub-cent fees." Co-founder Atul Khekade, in a FintechTV interview, pointed to the missing infrastructure that has kept most AI assistants in a "knowledge layer" of recommendations rather than actions, citing the absence of "real-time settlement… compliance, dispute resolution, KYC, AML, and that exact trust layer which AI needs."

x402, introduced by Coinbase in 2025, revives the HTTP "402 Payment Required" status code reserved since the 1990s but never deployed. In an x402 exchange, a server can charge for an API call or piece of data, and a client — including an autonomous AI agent — can settle the charge in stablecoins over the same request, with no account, API key, or human sign-off. XDC Network is among the platforms building on the standard.

According to Sellers Commerce, the AI agent market is projected to grow 538% from $7.38 billion in 2023 to $47 billion by 2030. Khekade said the network is designed as shared infrastructure for agent payments, potentially letting "coffee shops or DoorDash or travel companies" build "agentic applications" on the network rather than each business constructing its own payment stack.

XDC Network launched in 2019 through XinFin and is co-founded by Khekade and Kakkad. The EVM-compatible Layer-1 is aligned with ISO 20022, the messaging standard used across traditional banking, and has focused on trade finance, payments, and real-world asset tokenization.