Quite apart from whether the concept can succeed after having failed a number of well-funded and well-publicised times—
I open https://shtein.me/api/joke in a normal-enough browser (Firefox Nightly with Enhanced Tracking Protection and uBlock Origin). After loading its 2.3MB response (no useful HTML, just a huge inlined JS blob, and served without transfer compression), it asks me to select a wallet. There are two choices.
I select “Injected” and press “Connect wallet” (ugh, why did it require me to click three times instead of just one!?). Nothing discernible happens. No errors or network activity in the dev tools.
I'm curious about the legal implications of this. For example:
- In the EU, a consumer has 14 days to withdraw from a contract that you have concluded online, unless the consumer explicitly waives this right during the purchase (so your payment required page will need an explicit statement about this).
- I'm pretty sure in the EU, and probably most countries, you must receive an invoice, even if it's for a 1 cent purchase.
- You might also have to pay VAT on these transactions, which will need to also be included in the invoice. This is especially important for B2B purchases, because companies can claim back VAT.
- What happens if I complete the purchase, but there is an error in the response returned by the website? I.e. between the events of my purchase being confirmed and the server returning the response, the server dies. What recourse do I have?
The all time overall stats says volume is ~52m, but the table of featured services adds up to < 11m, with one 'x402 Facilitator - Dexter ' being like 95% of that...
Featured services is our attempt at a slightly more curated list of services.
Anyone can register services and APIs. Some people treat x402scan like a leaderboard, and they try and game it in all sorts of ways. We try and keep the "featured" list to resources we know are not boosting their numbers. It's a bit of a cat and mouse game though, and is by no means perfect. There will be false negatives/positives.
So do/can users get a preview of the content before being required to make payment? Or is the idea that users are likely already familiar with the site/content to which they will pay? Sorry I only skimmed the article.
I did not get it how it could be used for a _static blog_.
>…the paywall fetches the content behind the scenes, and since our response is JSON rather than HTML it has nothing to render in place, so it navigates to an in-memory object URL created from the response. The protocol itself is pay per use, so every time you hit an API - you will be charged.
So it can't be used to 'unlock' a paid article forever? You can only read it once, and if you closed the tab, you need to pay again?
Is L402 an open standard? It doesn't appear to be.
X402 is an open standard backed by the Linux Foundation.
I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the Linux Foundation as a company, nor of many of the names behind X402 (e.g. Coinbase) but if I had to choose between these two standards for something I was implementing, I know which one I'd be less worried about vendor lock-in with.
> This literally can change how we use internet making advertisement economy internet runs on obsolete.
Hmm, so I will pay to see websites that have ads. This may or may not be fine and solve some other problems (like paywalling AI agents), but lets not be naive. It won't replace ads, in most cases it will just be another stream.
I think this adds too much friction to trying to view a website and most people, upon seeing this sort of paywalling (regardless of how much or how little is being asked) will just not go to a site that's implemented this.
It's really not meant for humans - the author here is mainly doing that for demonstrative purposes. x402 is meant for, and best for, AI agents with access to a little working capital and need to access a paywalled tool, API, or content to help solve a task.
It took a ridiculous amount of effort, but it looks like we're starting to go somewhere with this. The complexity of crypto is, um, complex and very very not user friendly. I had money in my Phantom wallet, but that wouldn't connect. I suspect it's because my USDC was on the wrong network. So then I tried the Base wallet, from Coinbase. I couldn't send money from my Phantom wallet to my Base wallet for whatever reason, so finally I used Apple Pay to load $5 (the minimum) into my Base wallet, so that I could click the button, finally, to give you $0.01.
Except it still didn't work. When I used the mobile browser, I clicked the links and it looks like it wanted to take my money, but it returned to the site after going to base, without actually taking money. So then I used the Base app's browser to visit the site. It more convincingly tried to take money out of my wallet but the site returns Request failed: 402, which is confusing, and doesn't actually take my money.
You should give AgentCash [0] a spin. AgentCash is an x402 wallet + gateway for your agent. It can use any of the available paid APIs and even search them to find the right one for your task.
Consumers that actually spend (Americans) pay with unsecured credit, crypto ecosystem doesn't have robust unsecured credit systems. It has plenty of secured credit systems though because it is extremely optimal at collecting collateral and settlement, extremely unoptimal at rendering judgements and seizing non-possessed assets. Many applications try unsecured lending and solve nothing or gain no traction, running out of capital to unsecurely lend. This renders x402 for consumer applications dead in the water.
And if consumer applications were unlocked, the law of diminishing returns comes into play immediately as everyone tries to paywall their service, just like seen on Medium and Substack.
x402 is for agents to pay for something they need access to. The agents themselves will be speculators just like the users.
I could see the consumer use case working, but only if the layers upon layers of friction are removed. If I could pay 5 cents to view an article that captured my interest, by tapping a button, Face ID, fingerprint etc, then I might do it. Unclear how to make everything up to that point frictionless. Browsers would probably need to have native integration and hooks for payment and topping up the account.
I sure hope you're right though. To me x402 can subsidize the cost of producing and serving content with payments from the systems that are using it and giving the least back. It can mean more free content for humans with the right payment model.
Quite apart from whether the concept can succeed after having failed a number of well-funded and well-publicised times—
I open https://shtein.me/api/joke in a normal-enough browser (Firefox Nightly with Enhanced Tracking Protection and uBlock Origin). After loading its 2.3MB response (no useful HTML, just a huge inlined JS blob, and served without transfer compression), it asks me to select a wallet. There are two choices.
I select “Injected” and press “Connect wallet” (ugh, why did it require me to click three times instead of just one!?). Nothing discernible happens. No errors or network activity in the dev tools.
I select “Coinbase Wallet” and press “Connect wallet”. It opens a popup window, <https://keys.coinbase.com/connect?sdkName=%40coinbase%2Fwall...>. The TLS connection fails, PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR. Operating on a hunch, I discover it’s blocked in India:
(coinbase.com and www.coinbase.com are similarly affected.)Not sure quite what to make of that, given that https://www.coinbase.com/en-in/blog/coinbase-launches-in-ind... sounds (from the snippet exposed in a search engine) like Coinbase started fully operating in India five weeks ago.
Can’t say it leaves a positive impression.
>Nothing discernible happens. No errors or network activity in the dev tools.
I guess it expects any 'WEB3' browser extension to be installed. Anything that supports Ethereum should work: Metamask, Enkrypt, Rainbow, …
Good point… if your country doesn’t allow the infra behind the gateway, then the gateway won’t work.
I'm curious about the legal implications of this. For example:
- In the EU, a consumer has 14 days to withdraw from a contract that you have concluded online, unless the consumer explicitly waives this right during the purchase (so your payment required page will need an explicit statement about this).
- I'm pretty sure in the EU, and probably most countries, you must receive an invoice, even if it's for a 1 cent purchase.
- You might also have to pay VAT on these transactions, which will need to also be included in the invoice. This is especially important for B2B purchases, because companies can claim back VAT.
- What happens if I complete the purchase, but there is an error in the response returned by the website? I.e. between the events of my purchase being confirmed and the server returning the response, the server dies. What recourse do I have?
We are founding members of the x402 foundation and built the most popular x402 explorer, x402scan [0]
Happy to answer any questions!
[0] https://www.x402scan.com/
What are 'Featured Services' on this site?
The all time overall stats says volume is ~52m, but the table of featured services adds up to < 11m, with one 'x402 Facilitator - Dexter ' being like 95% of that...
Featured services is our attempt at a slightly more curated list of services.
Anyone can register services and APIs. Some people treat x402scan like a leaderboard, and they try and game it in all sorts of ways. We try and keep the "featured" list to resources we know are not boosting their numbers. It's a bit of a cat and mouse game though, and is by no means perfect. There will be false negatives/positives.
So do/can users get a preview of the content before being required to make payment? Or is the idea that users are likely already familiar with the site/content to which they will pay? Sorry I only skimmed the article.
I did not get it how it could be used for a _static blog_.
>…the paywall fetches the content behind the scenes, and since our response is JSON rather than HTML it has nothing to render in place, so it navigates to an in-memory object URL created from the response. The protocol itself is pay per use, so every time you hit an API - you will be charged.
So it can't be used to 'unlock' a paid article forever? You can only read it once, and if you closed the tab, you need to pay again?
Why was Cloudflare rolling their own verion of the already existing L402 protocol?
The protocol: https://docs.lightning.engineering/the-lightning-network/l40...
An index of current use: https://l402index.com/
Is L402 an open standard? It doesn't appear to be.
X402 is an open standard backed by the Linux Foundation.
I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the Linux Foundation as a company, nor of many of the names behind X402 (e.g. Coinbase) but if I had to choose between these two standards for something I was implementing, I know which one I'd be less worried about vendor lock-in with.
Indeed. I have about zero confidence in any "standard" that comes from the crypto-bro universe.
> This literally can change how we use internet making advertisement economy internet runs on obsolete.
Hmm, so I will pay to see websites that have ads. This may or may not be fine and solve some other problems (like paywalling AI agents), but lets not be naive. It won't replace ads, in most cases it will just be another stream.
FWIW I had WebMonetization up on my blog since April 2020. No paywall, just available. My wallet on GateHub net worth: 0.00
So... yeah, technically it works but until anybody cares, it doesn't matter.
I didn't even re-installed my wallet for others to get some reward back last time I setup my browser.
Check it tronbrowser has x402 supported natively
I think this adds too much friction to trying to view a website and most people, upon seeing this sort of paywalling (regardless of how much or how little is being asked) will just not go to a site that's implemented this.
I also think the friction is a higher obstacle than the cost.
It's really not meant for humans - the author here is mainly doing that for demonstrative purposes. x402 is meant for, and best for, AI agents with access to a little working capital and need to access a paywalled tool, API, or content to help solve a task.
It took a ridiculous amount of effort, but it looks like we're starting to go somewhere with this. The complexity of crypto is, um, complex and very very not user friendly. I had money in my Phantom wallet, but that wouldn't connect. I suspect it's because my USDC was on the wrong network. So then I tried the Base wallet, from Coinbase. I couldn't send money from my Phantom wallet to my Base wallet for whatever reason, so finally I used Apple Pay to load $5 (the minimum) into my Base wallet, so that I could click the button, finally, to give you $0.01.
Except it still didn't work. When I used the mobile browser, I clicked the links and it looks like it wanted to take my money, but it returned to the site after going to base, without actually taking money. So then I used the Base app's browser to visit the site. It more convincingly tried to take money out of my wallet but the site returns Request failed: 402, which is confusing, and doesn't actually take my money.
You should give AgentCash [0] a spin. AgentCash is an x402 wallet + gateway for your agent. It can use any of the available paid APIs and even search them to find the right one for your task.
Tell your agent "Set up agentcash.dev and use it to get a joke from http://shtein.me/api/joke"
[0] https://agentcash.dev/
I think x402 interest is completely misplaced
Consumers that actually spend (Americans) pay with unsecured credit, crypto ecosystem doesn't have robust unsecured credit systems. It has plenty of secured credit systems though because it is extremely optimal at collecting collateral and settlement, extremely unoptimal at rendering judgements and seizing non-possessed assets. Many applications try unsecured lending and solve nothing or gain no traction, running out of capital to unsecurely lend. This renders x402 for consumer applications dead in the water.
And if consumer applications were unlocked, the law of diminishing returns comes into play immediately as everyone tries to paywall their service, just like seen on Medium and Substack.
x402 is for agents to pay for something they need access to. The agents themselves will be speculators just like the users.
I'm fine being wrong.
I could see the consumer use case working, but only if the layers upon layers of friction are removed. If I could pay 5 cents to view an article that captured my interest, by tapping a button, Face ID, fingerprint etc, then I might do it. Unclear how to make everything up to that point frictionless. Browsers would probably need to have native integration and hooks for payment and topping up the account.
I sure hope you're right though. To me x402 can subsidize the cost of producing and serving content with payments from the systems that are using it and giving the least back. It can mean more free content for humans with the right payment model.