3 months ago
- Both x402 and Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) enable autonomous agent purchases by using HTTP 402 status code to integrate payment directly into transactions, bypassing manual steps like account creation.
- MPP supports multiple payment methods including stablecoins and cards, featuring a session primitive for micropayments without per-transaction fees, while x402 is crypto-native with stablecoins settled on-chain via facilitators.
- Merchant adoption is limited, with MPP's directory listing 137 mostly API-based services and few physical goods, and x402 having many merchants but minimal physical offerings; implementations often have bugs or are temporary demos.
- Successful tests included API usage via MPP (e.g., Anthropic's Claude) and stablecoin purchases of digital/physical goods, but fiat rail purchases faced issues like missing fields or demo closures, though a Stripe Climate donation worked.
- Agentic commerce is nascent with poor discoverability for x402 and merchant adoption as a bottleneck; future topics include merchant resistance to agents, irreversible payments, and chargeback handling.