Cardano joins Solana, XRP Ledger in race to power AI agent payments
The official x402 kit now includes Cardano tools for apps and AI agents to pay with ADA and other network tokens, though the facilitator has so far only been tested on pre-production.
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.
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.