Visa, Mastercard and Ripple back x402 – AI agent payments average 32 cents

Forty companies, including Visa, Mastercard and Ripple, now govern x402, a payments protocol originally built by Coinbase and handed to the broader community. Last month the protocol settled roughly 75 million payments totalling about $24 million, with an average transaction cost of 32 cents. X402 is designed specifically for payments made by AI agents.