Linux Foundation Announces Operational Launch of x402 Foundation to Standardize Internet-Native Payments for AI Agents and Applications

Foundation gathers 40 members dedicated to building an open, vendor-neutral payment standard over HTTP

Summary

• The Linux Foundation today announced the operational launch of the x402 Foundation, a new open-governance body formed to steward the x402 protocol – the open standard for internet-native payments over HTTP.
• The x402 protocol, contributed by Coinbase, embeds secure payment capabilities directly into web interactions so that AI agents, APIs, and applications can send and receive payments as seamlessly as they exchange data, with support for payment types ranging from traditional cards to stablecoins.
• Founding members spanning finance, cloud infrastructure, and payments have committed to collaboratively developing the protocol under vendor-neutral governance, ensuring the payment layer of the internet remains open, interoperable, and free from lock-in.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the operational launch of the x402 Foundation and the completed contribution of the x402 protocol by Coinbase. The Foundation is now fully active under formal, open governance to steward the x402 protocol – the universal standard that embeds secure payment capabilities directly into web interactions, allowing AI agents, APIs, and applications to process financial transactions as easily as they exchange data.

"AI agents and automated systems are becoming active participants in the global economy, yet they have lacked a native, secure way to transact," said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. "The operational launch of the x402 Foundation marks a vital milestone in establishing an open, community-governed standard for payments over HTTP. By bringing together leading companies across finance, technology and more, we're ensuring that the payment layer of the internet remains neutral, highly interoperable and ready to support digital commerce."

Under the neutral governance of the Linux Foundation, the x402 Foundation will allow developers, financial institutions, cloud providers and other community members to collaboratively shape the protocol's development. This open structure ensures that payments remain highly secure and adaptable, supporting multiple payment types, from traditional cards to stablecoins, without vendor lock-in.

Since the Foundation's intent to launch in April, 40 organizations have joined as members. Premier members include Adyen, Amazon Web Services (AWS), American Express, Circle, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Fiserv, Google, Mastercard, Monad Foundation, MoonPay, Ripple, Shopify, Solana Foundation, Stellar Development Foundation, Stripe, and Visa. General members include Aleo, Fireblocks, Galaxia Moneytree, Hecto Financial, Injective, KakaoPay, Kite AI, LayerZero Labs, Merit Systems, NEAR Foundation, Orthogonal, Polygon Labs, Quant Network, SKALE, t54 labs, utexo, World Liberty Financial, and zerohash. Associate Members include BSV Association, Cardano Foundation, Casper and Japanese Contents Blockchain Initiative, and OMA3.

To learn more about the x402 Foundation and membership opportunities, visit www.linuxfoundation.org/x402foundation/.

Supporting Quotes

"As AI agents take on more of the transaction lifecycle, the infrastructure behind them has to be built for control, interoperability, and trust from day one. We are excited to work with the x402 Foundation to shape open standards that let agents transact across the web while ensuring merchants can transact on their own terms."

– Tom Adams, CTO, Adyen

"With the x402 Foundation now formally launched, American Express is pleased to continue supporting open, interoperable standards for internet-native payments. Our support reflects our longstanding commitment to helping advance digital commerce with trust and security at the center."

– Luke Gebb, Executive Vice President, Global Innovation, American Express

"AI agents are becoming first-class participants in digital commerce, and they need a payments layer as open and interoperable as the internet itself. The x402 Foundation embodies that principle for the agentic era, proposing an open protocol for AI agents to transact programmatically, built on what customers want now, and extensible to what customers will need in the future."

– Peyton Rice, General Manager, AWS Payments and Fraud Prevention

"At Circle, we're building the open financial stack for the agentic economy. Agents can already call any API over HTTP; x402 gives them a native way to pay for it, standardizing payment as part of the request/response cycle. With x402 and USDC, agents can make payments that clear in seconds for a fraction of a cent. We're excited to help steward x402 as an open, vendor-neutral standard."

– Gagan Mac, Vice President, Arc Platform, Circle

"x402 was started at Coinbase to solve a real problem – AI agents had no native, interoperable way to pay for the things they needed to do. Moving the protocol to the Linux Foundation, with dozens of members spanning every corner of internet payments and infrastructure, is how open technology earns lasting trust across an industry. We look forward to building out x402 further with the community." 

– Lincoln Murr, Head of AI Product, Coinbase

"Standards thrive when the industry actually shows up to build them. The incredible momentum behind this operational launch – and the 40 members now on board – proves how urgent a secure, native payment layer has become. Cloudflare is thrilled to welcome our new peers to the x402 Foundation. Together, we're building the trusted, open architecture that will let agents transact at Internet scale."

– Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer, Cloudflare

"Agentic commerce requires open, interoperable standards that enable the seamless exchange of value across the internet. The operational launch of the x402 Foundation is an important step forward, and Fiserv is committed to helping advance this standard to support secure, scalable commerce for businesses of all sizes."

– Sanjay Saraf, Chief Product Officer, Merchant Solutions, Fiserv

"x402 gives the industry an open, internet-native standard for payments over HTTP. This is how we keep the emerging agentic economy interoperable. The Stellar Development Foundation is proud to help shape this new standard and build out this new economy."

– Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation

"Most of the conversation around agentic payments stops at the transaction. But agents don't just need to send money, they need to manage it. MoonPay is building the complete financial stack for the agentic era: the infrastructure to access and move value, the wallets to hold it, and now the intelligence to account for every dollar on the other side. x402 makes payments native to the web. We're making sure the entire financial operation behind those payments is native to the agent."

– Halsey Huth, Head of Ecosystems, MoonPay

"As AI agents begin to take on more of the transaction lifecycle, they will need a way to pay that is as fast and reliable as the way they already exchange data. Open standards like x402 help lay the foundation for trusted, interoperable machine-to-machine payments. We've been building the tools and infrastructure needed to support that future on the XRP Ledger, including support for x402 that enables agents to transact using XRP and RLUSD today. Alongside the x402 Foundation, we're committed to helping ensure those standards work consistently across the industry."

– Markus Infanger, Senior Vice President of RippleX, Ripple

"Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI. We're excited to work with the x402 community to help businesses accept payments from agents and empower agents to become economic actors on the internet."

– Kevin Miller, Head of Payments, Stripe

"Open payment standards like x402 are the starting point for building an agentic economy. As it scales, the importance of permissionless, scalable payment rails becomes evident, and we are focused on solving these problems on Solana."

– Rishin Sharma, Head of AI Growth, Solana Foundation

"As people and businesses increasingly use AI agents to get work done, internet-native payments will need the same secure, trusted and interoperable foundation that powers digital commerce today. Through Mastercard Agent Pay for Machines and our work with the x402 Foundation, we're helping shape an open, collaborative ecosystem that enables enterprise adoption and unlocks machine payments at scale."

– Sherri Haymond, Global Head of Digital Commercialization, Mastercard

"AI agents now book travel, replenish inventory, call paid APIs, and purchase compute on behalf of the people and businesses they serve, and that activity is shifting from purely making recommendations to execution. This exposes a gap in the architecture of the web, which has never had a native mechanism for one program to pay another. x402 addresses this gap. By contributing to x402, Monad Foundation will help define how the protocol lets agents discover, authorize, and settle value, which places the Foundation among the institutions shaping how agentic commerce will operate over the coming decade."

– Raj Parekh, Head of Stablecoins and Payments, Monad Foundation

"Commerce will not run on a single agent, protocol, or payment method. The future will be built on interoperability. By supporting the x402 Foundation, Visa is helping advance an ecosystem where agents can transact securely across platforms, networks, and payment types."

– Rubail Birwadker, Senior Vice President, Head of Growth Products and Partnerships, Visa

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