Visa, Stripe, Amex join AI payments protocol project

On Tuesday, the Linux Foundation formally launched the x402 Foundation, a nonprofit initiative backed by an unusually broad coalition of payments and technology companies. The members include American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, Fiserv, Circle Internet Group, Google, Amazon Web Services, Adyen, and Shopify. The foundation's core mission is to develop and maintain an open-source protocol—x402—that enables artificial-intelligence agents, application program interfaces, and software applications to execute payments securely and interoperably.

The x402 protocol originated at Coinbase, where it was designed to solve a specific problem facing AI systems. "AI agents had no native, interoperable way to pay for the things they needed to do," explained Lincoln Murr, head of AI product at Coinbase. By moving the protocol to the Linux Foundation and assembling a cross-industry coalition, Coinbase and its partners aim to establish a standard that earns trust across the payments ecosystem. The protocol will enable participating providers to transact securely, support multiple forms of payment, and evolve without locking in vendors to proprietary systems.

Under the Linux Foundation's governance, the x402 Foundation will bring together developers, financial institutions, cloud providers, and other stakeholders to guide the protocol's technical development. Luke Gebb, executive vice president of global innovation at American Express, expressed the company's commitment in the Tuesday press release: "With the x402 Foundation now formally launched, American Express is pleased to continue supporting open, interoperable standards for internet-native payments."

This initiative sits alongside another major payments collaboration announced just weeks earlier. On June 30, a group of more than 140 companies—including many of the same players (Visa, Stripe, American Express, Coinbase, Klarna Group, and others)—announced they would create Open USD, a stablecoin. Under that arrangement, earnings from the stablecoin's reserve assets will be divided among participating organizations. Together, the x402 Foundation and the Open USD initiative signal a broader industry shift toward open, collaborative infrastructure for payments in an increasingly AI-driven world.

The x402 Foundation represents a watershed moment for payments infrastructure in an AI-driven economy. Coinbase originally developed the x402 protocol to address a concrete problem: autonomous AI agents operating in the wild had no standardized way to transact and pay for services. By moving the protocol under the Linux Foundation—a neutral steward trusted by the industry—and recruiting a coalition that spans payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), fintech platforms (Stripe, Adyen, Shopify), cloud providers (Google, Amazon Web Services), and specialists in digital payments (Circle), the project signals that the industry recognizes this gap as real and worth solving together.

The timing is strategic. This announcement follows a parallel June initiative in which over 140 companies, many overlapping with this group, agreed to create Open USD, a stablecoin whose reserve earnings flow to participants. Both efforts reflect a pattern: major infrastructure players are moving toward open standards and shared ownership models rather than proprietary walled gardens. For payments companies, the incentive is clear—an open protocol that works across vendors means more payment opportunities and stickier relationships with customers deploying AI agents. For AI companies and developers, a standardized, vendor-neutral way to issue payments reduces integration friction and operational risk.

No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!