Chainalysis counted more than 138 million x402 transactions on Base through September 2026, with over 87% worth between $0.0001 and $0.10. The activity is growing, but transaction count can overstate economic value.
More than 138 million payments have moved through Coinbase's x402 protocol on Base, according to Chainalysis, but the headline count hides how small most transactions are.
Chainalysis examined the 16 months through September 2026. More than 87% of x402 payments were worth between one-hundredth of a cent and ten cents, with the most common size between one and ten cents. Those amounts are generally uneconomic for card networks, while stablecoins can settle them for less than a cent.
The protocol, published by Coinbase in May 2025, allows software to pay for resources inside a web request. An AI agent can purchase an API call, data or computing power without a person approving each individual transaction.
Activity is becoming more purposeful
Chainalysis found that newer wallets were funded and used more quickly. By the third quarter of 2026, 67% of newly funded x402 wallets made a payment within an hour, up from 4% for wallets first funded in the third quarter of 2025. The share receiving a second funding within 30 days also increased.
Those measures are stronger evidence than raw transaction count because they indicate repeated use. Even so, the data does not prove that every payment came from an autonomous AI agent. Scripts, demonstrations and self-directed transfers can inflate apparent adoption, and Chainalysis covers identifiable on-chain activity rather than the entire payment market.
For Coinbase, x402 can strengthen the usefulness of Base and USDC-based payments without requiring large transaction values. The potential business effect depends on developer adoption, retained users and any fees or services built around the protocol. Chainalysis did not establish a material revenue contribution to Coinbase.
The important signal is that machine-to-machine payments are finding a niche that card rails handle poorly. The limitation is economic scale: 138 million tiny payments may represent meaningful infrastructure usage while still producing modest dollar volume. Investors should track transaction value, active developers and repeat-funded wallets alongside the more impressive count.
Research and commentary are provided for information, not personalized investment advice. Verify material claims with the linked source and original company disclosures. Report a correction · About BTI
