The x402赛道 on the风口: Gold Rush or Minefield?

Author: Haotian

Many self-proclaimed IQ50 friends always want a clear answer: how should one pick projects in the x402 space? Everyone wants to ride the wind and lie flat to victory as the trend takes off. I can only say, congratulations to those who got an early start following the x402 space—but lying flat for easy wins? That's way too risky:

1) The current phase is a chaotic period for x402. Developers, VCs, CEXs, builders, etc., have not yet reached consensus or formed effective alignment. Precisely at this moment, projects seizing the opportunity to piggyback on the concept will emerge endlessly, making investment extremely difficult.

You think you're panning for gold, but actually you're defusing landmines;

2) Many people wonder, why is it that such an attractive sector has so few valuable projects?

Because the rise of the x402 space was sudden. Genuine x402 projects were hesitating, barely scraping by like underdogs, and the sudden surge in attention left them overwhelmed—most remain functionally incomplete and look terribly sketchy. Meanwhile, previously launched AI-related projects, which thought they were doomed to fade into obscurity, have been suddenly revived by an electric shock. But whether they can truly seize the x402 opportunity and make a real comeback—or are merely experiencing a fleeting last glow—remains completely unclear.

The real deals aren't ready yet, while fakes rush to take center stage;

3) This x402 trend differs from past crazes like inscriptions or AI Agents. Although all were fueled by expectations around alternative "asset issuance," compared to carving flowers on gold or chatbot hype, the x402 speculation is backed by AI payments:

A massive opportunity that bridges the divide between Crypto and the internet, leveraging blockchain's core infrastructure and stablecoin circulation to disrupt traditional internet advertising business models.

This prevents web2 players from simply dismissing it as another "web3 scam," and allows web3 AI participants to finally stand tall and say, "We have real use cases."

The old and new revolutionaries now have a basis for equal dialogue;

4) The x402 space has very low barriers to entry, especially technical ones, because attaching oneself to the x402 concept is too easy:

A project team can simply execute a basic transfer to collect money and issue tokens, brazenly raising funds under the x402 banner; hackers can quickly set up a mint frontend and backend phishing scheme to steal funds under the name of x402; many teams can perform an ordinary contract forwarding upgrade and claim OG status in x402; some wallet providers might just add an AI-powered auto-transfer feature and call themselves x402-native...

I'm not dismissing every project trying hard to integrate with x402 protocols, but in this early chaos, nothing is more dangerous than low-barrier half-hearted efforts that betray retail enthusiasm.

Because the true greatness of x402 lies not in its technology or products, but in its commercial vision.

The need to enable AI Agents to conduct fast, seamless, frictionless payments; to allow AI Agents to automatically and securely execute matched transactions under predefined conditions; to build underlying infra capable of handling VISA-scale transaction loads; to adapt a full suite of upstream and downstream infrastructure—the sheer scale of demand around building, optimizing, integrating, and refining this infrastructure and user experience—is what has forged our shared consensus: this sector is about to take off.

This is the x402 future we collectively envision.