Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is predicting that stablecoins and AI will reshape the way consumers pay for content on the internet, upending the subscription model that powers much of the web.
Armstrong posited this idea in an X post, where he claimed that stablecoins combined with the new x402 payment protocol will improve usability for businesses and consumers when it comes to micropayments for usage.
"Stablecoins and x402 enable businesses to accept micropayments for usage and decrease friction at checkout," the Coinbase CEO said.
Armstrong was particularly bullish on how x402 could disrupt online news subscriptions.
He argued that people shouldn't have to buy a monthly subscription just to read one article.
Instead, an AI agent could be tasked with retrieving the article on a consumer's behalf and would pay the publisher for that specific piece of content on autopilot.
What is x402?
The x402 technology powering Armstrong's vision is an open payment protocol that was first introduced by Coinbase in May 2025.
x402 is a reference to the HTTP 402 status code, meaning "Payment Required."
Although HTTP 402 has been around since the early days of the internet, it was never widely used for payments.
Coinbase's x402 protocol is designed to turn this largely dormant element of HTTP into an automated payment process that can facilitate transactions between websites, applications, and AI agents.
To illustrate, say you wanted an AI assistant to pull a certain article from a newspaper. Let's say it's priced at $0.25.
Instead of running into the traditional paywall where you have to sign up and subscribe on a monthly basis, the AI agent might get a payment request from the publisher.
At this point, the AI agent can send a payment authorization for $0.25 in stablecoins, assuming the user has given the agent permission to make these payments.
Big companies are adopting x402
Armstrong's views come as Coinbase and other big tech firms are pushing ahead with the infrastructure needed to facilitate AI payments.
In June, Coinbase teamed up with Amazon Web Services to enable publishers who use AWS CloudFront and Web Application Firewall to monetize the requests of AI agents through x402.
Separately, Cloudflare introduced its Monetization Gateway in closed beta in September. This allows participating businesses to request payments from AI agents for access to websites, datasets, and application programming interfaces through the x402 protocol.
