Two days ago, a new meme coin $PING launched on Base and quickly hit a $100 million market cap. Unlike any other coins, this coin can only be purchased through the minting process using the x402 protocol, which demonstrates a new use case of how payments, APIs, and even AI agents are able to transact across the internet. This protocol was developed by Coinbase, and is built on the old HTTP status code 402 (Payment Required), a status code that was defined in early HTTP specs but never really used in practice. This protocol repurposes it. Now, when a client tries to access a resource and no payment has been made yet, the server will return HTTP 402 with payment instructions. While this protocol on the surface might not sound revolutionary, deep down, it is the first to embed value transfer across the internet, which was originally meant for transferring information. Which means: 1. Micropayments and usage-based models are now able to be monetized at scale. We can now pay per use for APIs. The traditional way of paying was unable to work for pay-per-use because the small cent-per-use payment was not economical to go through the paywall every time, making it more economical to pay on a subscription basis. 2. It allows autonomy and agent-to-agent economy. This was showcased by the KiteAI framework, which used the x402 protocol for AI agents to make payments via every API call based on predefined rules from the users. For example, we can now talk to an agent that automates our tasks to pay service providers or business owners tips if they satisfy our requirements. One use case would be asking an Uber driver for transportation and giving him a tip if he arrives on time, now the agent can make this process easy and without human involvement. 3. It reduces payment frictions. Imagine we have to go through paywalls where the payment service provider is not the same as the service provider we are using, it would be hard to make payments. But x402 is chain-agnostic; it doesn’t require heavy account or credit-card onboarding, which makes payments seamless and enables cross-border micro-commerce, accelerating services in underbanked regions. Back to the memes after we understand how the whole payment process works under the x402 protocol. The minting process for $PING is quite interesting: 1. Visit the mint page — users go to the PING mint website built on Base. 2. Payment request — the site, using the x402 protocol, asks for a small payment (about 1 USDC) before minting. 3. Send payment — users send 1 USDC from their wallet to the address shown. 4. Verification — the x402 validator automatically checks the payment on-chain. 5. Token delivery — once confirmed, the system sends 5,000 $PING tokens to the user’s wallet. The minting process fully showcases how x402 turns payment into a native part of the web. No gateways, no subscriptions, just instant value transfer through a single transaction. As x402 continues to evolve, projects such as KiteAI, Skyfire, FluxA, and AurraCloud are already proving its potential across AI, identity, and micro-transaction systems. The next wave of innovation may well be driven by protocols that make payments as native to the web as information itself - x402