Original Title: "IOSG Weekly Brief | Stripe for Agents: Agent Investment Map from Protocol Stack to Payment Ecosystem"

Original Author: Jacob Zhao, IOSG Ventures

Agentic Commerce refers to a full-process business system where AI agents autonomously handle service discovery, trust evaluation, order generation, payment authorization, and final settlement. It no longer relies on human step-by-step operations or information input, but is rather driven by agents that automatically collaborate, place orders, make payments, and fulfill orders in a cross-platform, cross-system environment, forming a machine-to-machine autonomous business loop (M2M Commerce).

In the crypto space, the most practically applicable scenarios are currently mainly focused on stablecoin payments and DeFi. Therefore, in the process of merging Crypto and AI, the two most valuable paths are: AgentFi in the short term, which relies on existing mature DeFi protocols, and Agent Payment in the medium to long term, which revolves around stablecoin settlements and gradually improves relying on protocols such as ACP/AP2/x402/ERC-8004.

In the short term, Agentic Commerce is constrained by protocol maturity, regulatory differences, merchant and user acceptance, making it difficult to scale rapidly. However, in the long run, as payment is the underlying anchor point of all business loops, Agentic Commerce holds the most long-term value.

Agentic Commerce Payment System and Use Cases

In the Agentic Commerce system, the real-world merchant network is the greatest value scenario. Regardless of how AI agents evolve, the traditional fiat payment system (Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, bank transfers) and the rapidly growing stablecoin system (USDC, x402) will coexist in the long term, together forming the foundation of Agentic Commerce.

Traditional Fiat Payment vs Stablecoin Payment Comparison

Real-world merchants—from e-commerce, subscriptions, SaaS to travel, content payments, and enterprise procurement—carry trillion-dollar-level demand and are the core value source for AI agents to automatically compare prices, renew, and make purchases. In the short term, mainstream consumer and enterprise procurement will still be dominated by the traditional fiat payment system.

The core barrier preventing stablecoins from scaling in real-world business is not technological but rather regulation (KYC/AML, taxation, consumer protection), merchant accounting (illegitimate stablecoin redemption), and the lack of a dispute resolution mechanism for irreversible payments. Due to these structural limitations, stablecoins are short-term unlikely to penetrate highly regulated industries such as healthcare, aviation, e-commerce, government, and utilities. Their adoption will mainly focus on digital content, cross-border payments, Web3-native services, and the machine economy (M2M/IoT/Agent) where regulatory pressure is lower or on-chain native. This is also the initial opportunity window for Web3-native smart contract commerce to achieve scale breakthrough.

However, regulatory institutionalization is rapidly advancing by 2025: the U.S. stablecoin bill has bipartisan support, Hong Kong and Singapore have implemented stablecoin licensing frameworks, the EU's MiCA has come into effect, Stripe supports USDC, and PayPal has introduced PYUSD. The clarification of the regulatory structure means that stablecoins are being embraced by the mainstream financial system, opening up policy space for future cross-border settlements, B2B procurement, and the machine economy.

Best Application Scene Matching for Smart Contract Commerce

The core of Smart Contract Commerce (Agentic Commerce) is not to replace one payment rail with another but to entrust the execution entity of "order-authorization-payment" to an AI Agent, allowing the traditional fiat payment system (AP2, authorization credentials, identity compliance) and the stablecoin system (x402, CCTP, smart contract settlement) to each play to their strengths. It is neither a zero-sum competition between fiat and stablecoins nor a single-track substitution narrative but a structural opportunity to simultaneously expand the capabilities of both: fiat payments continue to support human commerce, while stablecoin payments accelerate machine-native and on-chain native scenarios. Both complement each other, becoming the dual engines of the smart contract economy.

Comprehensive Overview of Smart Contract Commerce Underlying Protocol Standards

The protocol stack of Smart Contract Commerce consists of six levels, forming a complete machine commerce chain from "capability discovery" to "payment delivery." A2A Catalog and MCP Registry are responsible for capability discovery, ERC-8004 provides on-chain verifiable identity and reputation; ACP and AP2 respectively handle structured ordering and authorization instructions; the payment layer is composed of the traditional fiat rail (AP2) and the stablecoin rail (x402) running in parallel; there is currently no unified standard for the delivery layer.

· Discovery Layer: Addresses "How does an agent discover and understand callable services?" The AI side builds a standardized capability catalog through A2A Catalog and MCP Registry; Web3 relies on ERC-8004 to provide an addressable identity reference. This layer is the entry point of the entire protocol stack.

· Trust Layer: Answers "Is the counterparty trustworthy?" The AI side lacks a universal standard, while Web3 builds a unified framework for verifiable identity, reputation, and execution records through ERC-8004, which is a key advantage of Web3.

· Ordering Layer: Responsible for "How are orders expressed and validated?" ACP (OpenAI × Stripe) provides structured descriptions of goods, prices, and settlement terms to ensure merchants can fulfill orders. As real-world business contracts are difficult to express on-chain, this layer is primarily dominated by Web2.

· Authorization Layer: Deals with "Has the agent obtained legitimate user authorization?" AP2 binds intent, confirmation, and payment authorization to a real identity system through verifiable credentials. Web3 signatures do not yet have legal effect, so they cannot assume the contract and compliance responsibilities of this layer.

· Payment Layer: Determines "Through which channel is payment completed?" AP2 covers traditional payment networks such as cards and banks; x402 provides a native API payment interface for stablecoins, allowing assets like USDC to be embedded in automated calls. The two types of channels complement each other in functionality.

· Fulfillment Layer: Addresses "How is content securely delivered after payment completion?" There is currently no unified protocol: the real world relies on merchant systems to complete delivery, and Web3's encrypted access control has not yet formed a cross-ecosystem standard. This layer remains the biggest blank space in the protocol stack and is also the most likely to give birth to the next generation of foundational protocols.

Key Core Protocol Breakdown of Agentic Commerce

Around the five key aspects of Agentic Commerce (service discovery, trust evaluation, structured ordering, payment authorization, and final settlement), institutions such as Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Stripe, Ethereum, Coinbase, etc., have proposed underlying protocols in the respective areas, collectively building the next generation Agentic Commerce core protocol stack.

Agent-to-Agent (A2A) – Intelligent Agent Interoperability Protocol (Google)

A2A is an open-source protocol initiated by Google and donated to the Linux Foundation, with the aim of providing a unified communication and collaboration standard for AI Agents built by different vendors using different frameworks. A2A, based on HTTP + JSON-RPC, enables secure, structured message and task exchange, allowing Agents to engage in natural language dialogues, collaborative decision-making, task decomposition, and state management. Its core objective is to build an "internet of agents," where any A2A-compatible Agent can be automatically discovered, invoked, and composed, creating a cross-platform, cross-organizational distributed Agent network.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) – Unified Tool Data Access Protocol (Anthropic)

MCP, introduced by Anthropic, is an open protocol that connects LLM/Agents with external systems, focusing on unified tool and data access interfaces. It abstracts databases, file systems, remote APIs, and proprietary tools into standardized resources, enabling Agents to securely, controllably, and auditably access external capabilities. MCP is designed with an emphasis on low integration costs and high scalability: developers only need to integrate once to allow an Agent to utilize the entire tool ecosystem. Currently, MCP has been adopted by several leading AI vendors, becoming the de facto standard for agent-tool interaction.

MCP focuses on "How Agent Uses Tools" – providing unified and secure external resource access capabilities to models (such as databases, APIs, file systems, etc.), thus standardizing the interaction between agents and tools or data.

A2A addresses "How Agents Collaborate with Other Agents" – establishing a native communication standard for intelligent agents across vendors and frameworks, supporting multi-turn dialogues, task decomposition, state management, and long-lifecycle execution, serving as the foundational interoperability layer among agents.

Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) – Order Checkout Protocol (OpenAI × Stripe)

ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) is an open ordering standard proposed by OpenAI and Stripe (Apache 2.0), establishing a structured ordering process understood by machines for the Buyer-AI Agent-Merchant interaction. The protocol covers product information, price and term validation, settlement logic, and payment credential transmission, enabling AI to securely initiate purchases on behalf of users without becoming the merchant.

Its core design involves AI making standardized calls to the merchant's checkout API while the merchant retains full business and legal control. ACP, through structured orders (JSON Schema / OpenAPI), secure payment tokens (Stripe Shared Payment Token), compatibility with existing e-commerce backends, and support for REST and MCP publishing capabilities, allows merchants to enter the AI shopping ecosystem without system modifications. Currently, ACP has been used in ChatGPT Instant Checkout, becoming an early deployed operational payment infrastructure.

Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) – Digital Authorization and Payment Instruction Protocol (Google)

AP2 is an open standard launched by Google in collaboration with multiple payment networks and tech companies, aiming to establish a unified, compliant, and auditable process for AI Agent-led payments. It binds the user's payment intent, authorization scope, and compliant identity together through encrypted, signed digital authorization credentials, providing verifiable evidence of "who is spending for whom" to merchants, payment institutions, and regulators.

Following a "Payment-Agnostic" design principle, AP2 supports credit cards, bank transfers, real-time payments, and access to stablecoins via extensions like x402 and other encrypted payment rails. Within the entire Agentic Commerce protocol stack, AP2 is not responsible for specific goods and order details but offers a general Agent payment authorization framework for various payment channels.

ERC-8004 – On-Chain Agent Identity / Reputation / Attestation Standard (Ethereum)

ERC-8004 is an Ethereum standard proposed by MetaMask, the Ethereum Foundation, Google, and Coinbase, aiming to build a cross-platform, verifiable, trustless identity and reputation system for AI Agents. The protocol consists of three on-chain parts:

· Identity Registry: Forges an on-chain identity similar to an NFT for each Agent, with links to MCP/A2A endpoints, ENS/DID, wallets, and other cross-platform information.

· Reputation Registry: Standardizes recording of scores, feedback, and behavior signals, enabling the auditability, aggregation, and composition of an Agent's historical performance.

· Validation Registry: Supports validation mechanisms such as stake re-execution, zkML, TEE, providing verifiable execution records for high-value tasks.

Through ERC-8004, an Agent's identity, reputation, and behavior are attested on-chain, forming a cross-platform discoverable, tamper-proof, verifiable trust base, which is a key infrastructure for building an open and trusted AI economy in Web3. ERC-8004 is in the Review stage, indicating that the standard is mostly stable, feasible, but still actively seeking community feedback and not yet finalized.

x402 – Stablecoin Native API Payment Rail (Coinbase)

x402 is an open payment standard proposed by Coinbase (Apache-2.0), transforming the long-idle HTTP 402 Payment Required status into a programmable on-chain payment handshake, enabling API and AI Agents to achieve accountless, frictionless, pay-as-you-go on-chain settlements without an account, credit card, or API Key.

Diagram: HTTP 402 Payment Workflow  Source: Jay Yu@Pantera Capital

Core Mechanism: The x402 protocol revives the early internet's legacy HTTP 402 status code. Its workflow includes:

· Request and Negotiation: Client (Agent) initiates a request -> Server responds with a 402 status code and payment parameters (such as amount, recipient address).

· Self-Sovereign Payments: Agent locally signs transactions and broadcasts them (usually using stablecoins such as USDC) without manual intervention.

· Verification and Delivery: The server-side or third-party Facilitator verifies on-chain transactions and instantly releases the resources.

x402 introduced the Facilitator role as middleware connecting Web2 APIs to the Web3 settlement layer. The Facilitator handles complex on-chain validation and settlement logic, allowing traditional developers to monetize their APIs with minimal code. The server-side does not need to run nodes, manage signatures, or broadcast transactions; it only needs to rely on the Facilitator's provided interface to complete on-chain payment processing. The most mature Facilitator implementation currently is provided by the Coinbase Developer Platform.

The technical advantages of x402 include supporting on-chain microtransactions as low as 1 cent, overcoming the limits of traditional payment gateways in handling high-frequency small-value calls in AI scenarios. It completely removes the need for accounts, KYC, and API Keys, allowing AI to autonomously complete M2M payment loops. It also implements gasless USDC authorization payments through EIP-3009, natively compatible with Ethereum and Solana, demonstrating multi-chain scalability.

Based on the introduction of the Agentic Commerce core protocol stack, the table below summarizes the protocol's positioning at various levels, core capabilities, major constraints, and maturity assessment, providing a structured view for building a cross-platform, executable, and payable intelligent agent economy.

Web3 Intelligent Agent Business Ecosystem Representative Projects

The current Web3 ecosystem of intelligent agent commerce can be divided into three layers:

· Business Payment System Layer (L3), including projects such as Skyfire, Payman, Catena Labs, Nevermined, providing payment abstraction, SDK integration, credit limits and permission governance, human approval and compliance access, and to varying degrees, integrating with traditional financial rails (banks, card networks, PSPs, KYC/KYB) to bridge the gap between payment business and the machine economy.

· Layer 2 Native Payment Protocol (L2), consisting of protocols such as x402, Virtual ACP, and their ecosystem projects, is responsible for fee requests, payment validation, and on-chain settlement. It is the core enabling automated, end-to-end settlement in the current Agent Economy. x402 is completely independent of banks, card networks, and payment service providers, providing on-chain native M2M/A2A payment capability.

· Infrastructure Layer (L1), including Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Kite AI, provides the on-chain execution environment, key infrastructure, MPC/AA, and permission Runtime technical stack for payments and identity systems as a trusted foundation.

Layer 3 Business Payment System Layer - Skyfire: Identity and Payment Credentials of AI Agents

Skyfire, with KYA + Pay at its core, abstracts "Identity Verification + Payment Authorization" into a JWT credential usable by AI, providing verifiable automated access and charging capabilities for websites, APIs, and MCP services. The system automatically generates Buyer/Seller Agents and custodial wallets for users, supporting card, bank, and USDC top-ups.

At the system level, Skyfire generates Buyer/Seller Agents and custodial wallets for each user, supporting balance top-ups via card, bank, and USDC. Its key advantage is full compatibility with Web2 (JWT/JWKS, WAF, API Gateway can be used directly), providing "identity-enabled automatic pay-per-visit access" for content websites, data APIs, and utility SaaS.

Skyfire is a practical Agent Payment middleware layer, but both identity and asset custody are centralized solutions.

Layer 3 Business Payment System Layer - Payman: AI-native Fund Authorization Risk Control

Payman provides capabilities in Wallet, Payee, Policy, and Approval, establishing a governance and auditable "Fund Authorization Layer" for AI. AI can execute actual payments, but all fund actions must adhere to user-defined limits, policies, and approval rules. The core interaction is carried out through the natural language interface payman.ask(), where the system is responsible for intent parsing, policy validation, and payment execution.

The key value of Payman is: "AI can move money, but never overstep its authority." Migrating enterprise fund governance to an AI environment: tasks such as automated payroll, expense reimbursement, vendor payments, batch transfers, etc., can all be completed within clearly defined permission boundaries. Payman is suitable for financial automation within enterprises and teams (e.g., payroll, expense reimbursement, vendor payments), positioning itself as a Controlled Fund Governance Layer and does not attempt to build an open Agent-to-Agent payment protocol.

L3 Business Payment System Layer - Catena Labs: Agent Identity/Payment Standard

At the business layer, Catena leverages AI-Native financial institutions (custody, clearing, risk management, KYA) and, at the standard layer, builds the Agent's unified identity protocol (ACK-ID) and Agent-native payment protocol (ACK-Pay) through the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK). The goal is to fill the gap in the machine economy regarding verifiable identity, authorization chains, and automated payment standards.

ACK-ID is built on DID/VC to establish the Agent's ownership chain and authorization chain; ACK-Pay defines payment requests decoupled from the underlying settlement network (USDC, banks, Arc) and receipt formats that are verifiable. Catena emphasizes long-term cross-ecosystem interoperability, with its role being closer to the "TLS/EMV layer of the Agent economy," characterized by strong standardization and a clear vision.

L3 Business Payment System Layer - Nevermined: Metering, Billing, and Micro Payment Settlement

Nevermined focuses on an AI usage-based economic model, providing Access Control, Metering, Credits System, and Usage Logs for automated metering, pay-per-use billing, revenue sharing, and auditing. Users can recharge credits via Stripe or USDC, and the system automatically verifies usage, deducts fees, and generates auditable logs with each API call.

Its core value lies in supporting real-time micro payments at sub-cent levels and Agent-to-Agent automated settlement, enabling data purchases, API calls, workflow scheduling, etc., to operate on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. Nevermined does not build new payment rails but rather constructs a metering/billing layer on top of payments: in the short term, driving the commercialization of AI SaaS, in the medium term, supporting an A2A marketplace, and in the long term, potentially becoming the micro payment fabric of the machine economy.

Skyfire, Payman, Catena Labs, and Nevermined belong to the Business Payments Layer, all requiring integration with banks, card schemes, PSPs, and KYC/KYB to varying degrees. However, their real value lies not in "fiat onramp," but in addressing machine-native needs that traditional finance cannot cover — identity mapping, permissioned governance, programmatic risk control, and pay-per-use billing.

· Skyfire (Payment Gateway): Provides "Identity + Auto Debit" for websites/APIs (on-chain identity mapping Web2 identity)

· Payman (Financial Governance): Internal enterprise policies, limits, permissions, and approvals (AI can spend money but cannot overstep authority)

· Catena Labs (Financial Infrastructure): Integrated with the banking system, building through KYA, custody, and settlement services (AI compliant bank)

· Nevermined (Cashier): Focuses only on metering and billing above payments; payments rely on Stripe/USDC.

In contrast, x402 operates at a lower level, being the only one not relying on banks, card schemes, and PSP for native on-chain payment protocols, enabling direct on-chain debiting and settlement through the 402 workflow. When upper-layer systems like Skyfire, Payman, Nevermined can all invoke x402 as a settlement rail, providing Agents with a truly meaningful M2M / A2A automated native payment loop.

L2 Native Payment Protocol Layer - x402 Ecosystem: From Client to On-Chain Settlement

The x402 native payment ecosystem can be divided into four levels: the Client, Server, Payment Execution Layer (Facilitators), and Blockchain Settlement Layer. The Client is responsible for enabling the Agent or application to initiate payment requests; the Server provides data, reasoning, or storage API services to the Agent on a pay-per-use basis; the Payment Execution Layer completes on-chain debiting, validation, and settlement, serving as the core execution engine of the entire process; the Blockchain Settlement Layer undertakes the final token debiting and on-chain confirmation, achieving tamper-proof payment finality.

Legend: X402 Payment Flow   Source: X402 Whitepaper

Client-Side Integrations Layer (Client-Side Integrations / The Payers)

Enabling an Agent or application to initiate an x402 payment request is the "starting point" of the entire payment flow. Represented projects:

· thirdweb Client SDK — the most commonly used x402 client standard in the ecosystem, actively maintained, supports multiple chains, and is the default tool for developers to integrate x402.

· Nuwa AI — allows AI to directly pay for access to x402 services without coding, a representative project of "Agent Pay Entry Point".

· The website also lists Axios/Fetch, Mogami Java SDK, Tweazy, and others as early-stage clients.

Current existing clients are still in the "SDK era," essentially developer tools. Advanced forms of clients such as browser/OS clients, robot/IoT clients, enterprise systems, or clients capable of managing multiple wallets/facilitators have not yet emerged.

Server-Side / API Provider (Services / Endpoints / The Sellers)

Selling data, storage, or reasoning services to an Agent on a per-use basis, some represented projects include:

· AIsa — provides API calls and settlement infrastructure for real AI Agents to access data, content, computing power, and third-party services on a call-by-call, token-based, or consumption basis, currently the leader in x402 calls.

· Firecrawl — the most commonly used web page parsing and structured crawler entry point for AI Agents.

· Pinata — mainstream Web3 storage infrastructure, x402 can now cover real underlying storage costs with a non-trivial API.

· Gloria AI — provides high-frequency real-time news and structured market signals, an intelligence source for trading and analysis-oriented Agents.

· AEON - Expand x402 + USDC to enable offline merchant acquiring in Southeast Asia / Latin America / Africa.

· Neynar - Farcaster Social Graph Infrastructure, opening up social data to Agents in an x402-like manner.

The current server-side is heavily focused on Web Scraping / Storage / News API, with the more advanced critical layer capable of Financial Transaction Execution API, Advertising Placement API, Web2 SaaS Gateway, and even Real-World Task Execution API being largely undeveloped, representing the most promising growth curve for the future.

Payment Execution Layer (Facilitators / The Processors)

Responsible for on-chain deduction, validation, and settlement, serving as the core execution engine for x402, with projects including:

· Coinbase Facilitator (CDP) - Enterprise-grade trusted executor, offering Mainnet Zero Fee + built-in OFAC/KYT, the strongest choice for production environments.

· PayAI Facilitator - The most widely covered multi-chain execution layer project (Solana, Polygon, Base, Avalanche, etc.), the highest-usage multi-chain Facilitator in the ecosystem.

· Daydreams - A strong use-case project that combines payment execution with LLM routing inference, currently the fastest-growing "AI Inference Payment Executor," emerging as the third major force in the x402 ecosystem.

· According to x402scan data for the past 30 days, there is also a group of mid-to-long-tail Facilitators/Routers, including Dexter, Virtuals Protocol, OpenX402, CodeNut, Heurist, Thirdweb, x402.rs, Mogami, Questflow, etc., with overall transaction volume, number of sellers, and number of buyers all significantly lower than the top three.

Blockchain Settlement Layer

The final destination of the x402 payment workflow, responsible for completing the actual token deduction and on-chain confirmation. Although the x402 protocol itself is Chain-Agnostic, settlement is currently concentrated on two main networks:

· Base ——Led by the official CDP Facilitator, USDC-native, fee-stable, and the network with the highest transaction volume and seller count.

· Solana——Primarily supported by PayAI and other multi-chain Facilitators, experiencing the fastest growth in high-throughput and low-latency, particularly in high-frequency inference and real-time API scenarios.

The chain itself is not involved in the payment logic. With the expansion of more Facilitators, x402's settlement layer will exhibit a stronger trend towards multi-chain interoperability.

In the x402 payment system, the Facilitator is the sole entity that truly executes on-chain payments, closest to the "protocol-level revenue": responsible for validating payment authorizations, submitting and tracking on-chain transactions, generating auditable settlement proofs, while also handling replay protection, timeouts, multi-chain compatibility, and basic compliance checks. Unlike Client SDKs (Payers) and API servers (Sellers) that handle only HTTP requests, the Facilitator serves as the ultimate clearinghouse for all M2M/A2A transactions, controlling the flow entry and settlement fee rights, thus positioned at the core of value capture in the Agent economy, garnering the most market attention.

However, the reality is that most projects are still in testing or small-scale demo stages, essentially serving as lightweight "payment executors," lacking moats in key capabilities such as identity, billing, risk control, and multi-chain steady-state handling, exhibiting a clear low-barrier, high-homogenization characteristic. As the ecosystem matures, Facilitators will tend towards a winner-takes-all situation: top institutions with stability and compliance advantages (such as Coinbase) have a significant early lead. Looking ahead, x402 remains at the interface layer, unable to carry core value. What truly fosters sustained competitiveness is a comprehensive platform that can build identity, billing, risk control, and compliance systems on top of settlement capabilities.

L2 Native Payment Protocol Layer - Virtual Agent Commerce Protocol

The Virtual Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) provides an AI agent with a set of universal business interaction standards, enabling autonomous intelligent agents to request services, negotiate terms, complete transactions, and undergo quality assessment in a secure, verifiable manner through a Request → Negotiation → Transaction → Evaluation four-stage process. ACP uses blockchain as a trusted execution layer, ensuring that the interaction process is auditable and tamper-proof. By introducing Evaluator Agents to establish an incentive-driven reputation system, diverse and independent professional agents can form an "autonomous business entity" under decentralized coordination, engaging in sustainable economic activities. Currently, ACP is still in its early stages, with a limited ecosystem scale, more akin to an exploration of "multi-agent business interaction standards."

L1 Infrastructure Layer - Kite AI: Emerging/Vertical Agent Native Payment Chain

Mainstream general-purpose blockchains such as Ethereum, Base (EVM), Solana, etc., provide Agents with the most fundamental execution environment, account system, state machine, security, and settlement foundation, featuring a mature account model, stablecoin ecosystem, and a wide developer base.

Kite AI is a representative "Agent-Native L1" infrastructure designed specifically for intelligent agents to handle payments, identity, and permissions at the underlying execution level. Its core is based on the SPACE framework (Stablecoin-Native, Programmable Constraints, Agent-First Authentication, Compliance Audit, Economically Feasible Micro-Payments), and achieves fine-grained risk isolation through a three-tier key system of Root→Agent→Session; further, by optimizing state channels to build an "Agent-Native Payment Railway," costs are reduced to $0.000001, latency is controlled to the hundred-millisecond level, enabling feasible API-level high-frequency micro-payments. As a general execution layer, Kite is upward compatible with x402, Google A2A, Anthropic MCP, downward compatible with OAuth 2.1, aiming to become a unified Agent payment and identity base connecting Web2 and Web3.

AIsaNet integrates the x402 and L402 (402 Payment Protocol standard based on the Lightning Network developed by Lightning Labs) protocols as a micro-payment and settlement layer for AI agents, supporting high-frequency transactions, cross-protocol call coordination, settlement path selection, and transaction routing, enabling agents to complete cross-service, cross-chain automatic payments without understanding the underlying complexity.

Summary and Outlook: From Payment Protocols to Machine Economic Order Restructuring

Agentic Commerce is the establishment of a new economic order dominated by machines. It is not as simple as "AI automated ordering" but rather a complete reconstruction of the cross-subject chain: how services are discovered, trustworthiness is established, orders are expressed, permissions are authorized, value is settled, and disputes are resolved. The emergence of A2A, MCP, ACP, AP2, ERC-8004, and x402 has standardized the "business closed-loop between machines."

Along this evolutionary path, the future payment infrastructure will differentiate into two parallel tracks: one based on traditional fiat logic for business governance and the other based on the x402 protocol for native settlement. The value capture logic between the two is different.

Business Governance Track: Web3 Business Payment System Layer

· Use Case: Low-frequency, non-micropayment real-world transactions (such as procurement, SaaS subscriptions, physical e-commerce).

· Core Logic: Traditional fiat will continue to dominate long term, with Agents being smarter frontends and process coordinators rather than replacing Stripe / card networks / bank transfers. The main barrier to stablecoin's large-scale entry into the real commercial world lies in regulation and taxation.

· Projects like Skyfire, Payman, Catena Labs, etc., derive value not from the underlying payment routing (usually handled by Stripe/Circle) but from "Governance-as-a-Service." That is, addressing machine-native needs that traditional finance cannot cover — identity mapping, permission governance, programmatic risk control, liability assignment, and M2M / A2A micropayment (settled per token/second). The key is who can become the enterprise's trusted "AI financial steward."

Native Settlement Track: x402 Protocol Ecosystem and the Facilitator's Endgame

Use Case: High-frequency, micropayment, M2M/A2A digital native transactions (API billing, resource streaming payments).

Core Logic: x402 (L402), as an open standard, has achieved atomic binding of payment and resources through the HTTP 402 status code. In programmable micropayment and M2M/A2A scenarios, x402 is currently the most complete and front-running protocol in the ecosystem (HTTP-native + on-chain settlement). Its position in the Agent economy is expected to be analogous to "Stripe for agents."

Mere adoption of x402 on the client or service side does not bring a premium in the race; the real growth potential lies in the ability to accumulate long-term repurchases and high-frequency calls to upper-layer assets, such as OS-level Agent clients, robot/IoT wallets, and high-value API services (market data, GPU inference, real task execution, etc.).

The Facilitator assists in completing the payment handshake, invoice generation, and fund settlement between the Client and Server, acting as a protocol gateway that controls both traffic and settlement fees, making it the closest link to "revenue" in the current x402 Stack. Most Facilitators are essentially "payment executors" with obvious low barriers and homogeneous features. Giants with advantages in usability and compliance (such as Coinbase) have formed a dominant pattern. The core value that avoids marginalization will move up to the "Facilitator + X" service layer: by building a verifiable service directory and reputation system, providing arbitration, risk control, treasury management, and other high-margin capabilities.

We believe that in the future, there will be a dual-track system of both the "Legal Tender System" and the "Stablecoin System": the former supporting mainstream human commerce, and the latter carrying high-frequency, cross-border, and micropayment scenarios for machine-native and on-chain-native transactions. The role of Web3 is not to replace traditional payment systems but to provide the underlying capabilities of verifiable identity, programmable settlement, and global stablecoins for the Agent Era. Ultimately, Agentic Commerce will not be limited to payment optimization but will be a restructuring of the machine economic order. When billions of microtransactions are automatically completed by Agents in the background, protocols and companies that are the first to provide trust, coordination, and optimization capabilities will become the core forces of the next-generation global business infrastructure.

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