Consumers that actually spend (Americans) pay with unsecured credit, crypto ecosystem doesn't have robust unsecured credit systems. It has plenty of secured credit systems though because it is extremely optimal at collecting collateral and settlement, extremely unoptimal at rendering judgements and seizing non-possessed assets. Many applications try unsecured lending and solve nothing or gain no traction, running out of capital to unsecurely lend. This renders x402 for consumer applications dead in the water.
And if consumer applications were unlocked, the law of diminishing returns comes into play immediately as everyone tries to paywall their service, just like seen on Medium and Substack.
x402 is for agents to pay for something they need access to. The agents themselves will be speculators just like the users.
I'm fine being wrong.
So... yeah, technically it works but until anybody cares, it doesn't matter.
I didn't even re-installed my wallet for others to get some reward back last time I setup my browser.
The protocol: https://docs.lightning.engineering/the-lightning-network/l40...
An index of current use: https://l402index.com/
X402 is an open standard backed by the Linux Foundation.
I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the Linux Foundation as a company, nor of many of the names behind X402 (e.g. Coinbase) but if I had to choose between these two standards for something I was implementing, I know which one I'd be less worried about vendor lock-in with.
entropi•1h ago
Hmm, so I will pay to see websites that have ads. This may or may not be fine and solve some other problems (like paywalling AI agents), but lets not be naive. It won't replace ads, in most cases it will just be another stream.