According to data published by Hashed Official, Dexter has overtaken Coinbase to become the largest daily facilitator of x402 transactions since December 11th. The AI protocol currently facilitates over 19.8 million total transactions, 14 million fewer than the Base network.
The Korean venture fund cited data from Dune Analytics showing that about half of its daily transactions since mid-December have been processed through Dexter. At the same time, Coinbase’s share fell by a quarter to a third depending on the day.
Number of x402 transactions per facilitator. Source: Dune
The remaining volume is split between PayAI and DayDreams, which together account for as much as 30% of the remaining market on the best days. Coinbase, Dexter, PayAI, and DayDreams each currently process more than 10 million total x402 transactions.
At the same time, the total number of x402 transactions has increased sharply since October. Daily trading volume increased from negligible levels in early October to repeat peaks of more than 2 million trades by mid-November.
According to Dune’s charts, there were several days in late November and early December where transactions approached or exceeded 3 million transactions per day.
From early October to mid-November, Coinbase facilitated the majority of x402 transactions, accounting for 60% or 70% of daily trading volume. However, on December 10th, Dexter’s share rose to 30.7%, while Coinbase’s share fell to 31%. AI networks were a major driver throughout the final months of the year.
PayAI and DayDreams also show consistent growth in both absolute transactions and percentage share. Together, these typically account for 20% to 30% of daily x402 volume, according to Dune Analytics’ stacked bar chart.
Convert x402 experimental code to production payments
x402 is an open payment protocol developed by Coinbase last year that brought back the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code. Although this code has existed for decades, it had never been meaningfully implemented in web infrastructure. x402 gives it a practical role by enabling automated instant payments of stablecoins directly via standard HTTP requests.
When a client requests access to an API, dataset, or digital resource, the server returns a 402 status code with payment terms. You can then send a signed payment payload, mostly denominated in USDC.
A facilitator like Dexter AI checks the payment on-chain and, once verified, instructs the server to immediately send the requested content. It monitors compatible blockchains, checks received payments, creates signed authorizations, and provides an HTTP interface. Therefore, traders can make payments on-chain without having to host their own blockchain nodes.
Coinbase operates a hosted facilitator that offers fee-free USDC payments with high-throughput payments on Base and Solana. This service was a key driver of early x402 adoption. However, this protocol is explicitly designed to support multiple independent facilitators, allowing services to choose or switch providers.
Coinbase made x402 publicly available last May, and by December announced that it had processed 75 million x402 transactions worth $24 million through paid APIs and interactions with AI agents.
Coinbase launched a second version of the protocol in September that added network-agnostic identifiers, pluggable facilitators, wallet hooks, and a discovery layer known as x402 Bazaar. All of this is to allow developers and services to freely use x402 with other blockchain networks and operators.
“Think of it like a paywall for scrapers, so x402 is the standard of choice for situations where AI agents need access to data and content to make better, more informed decisions. In fact, you can pay for any digital product or media with X402,” said Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform.
x402 integration expanded with real-world use cases
The adoption of x402 has received some support from major internet services like Cloudflare. Cloudflare has announced plans to integrate x402 into its platform and co-launch the x402 Foundation alongside Google Cloud’s Agent Payments Protocol, which will use the payments protocol for on-chain payments.
Coinbase points to potential use cases such as allowing agents to obtain live market data, commission AI art models, and subscribe to real-time sports and financial feeds. Some listings on x402 Bazaar include Priorix, a stock price API that allows agents to create up-to-date financial reports.
