PANews reported on March 11th that, according to CoinDesk, x402, an AI payment protocol backed by Coinbase and others, aims to enable automated payments between AI agents and software by embedding small stablecoin payments into the internet communication layer. Despite the growing narrative surrounding the "agent economy," on-chain data shows the protocol is still in the experimental stage. Artemis analysis indicates that x402 currently processes only about $28,000 in transactions daily, averaging about $0.20 per transaction, and approximately half of these transactions are artificial volume manipulation activities such as "self-trading" or "wash trading," rather than genuine commercial activity. While there was a peak of 3.8 million transactions and approximately $2 million in February, this was primarily due to infrastructure testing and experimental uses. The entire ecosystem is valued at approximately $7 billion, most of which comes from Chainlink's LINK tokens, not pure x402 assets.

Supporters argue that X402 aims to address the challenges of small-value, high-frequency machine-to-machine payments that traditional payment systems struggle to handle, but true commercial application will take time. Analysts point out that the growth rate of the agent economy may be overestimated in the coming year, but its potential may be underestimated five years from now.