The x402 protocol's trading volume has doubled! From Meme coin's big pump to an explosion in applications.

It has been nearly a week since the x402 protocol ignited market enthusiasm due to the explosive popularity of meme coin $PING . Data shows that the trading volume of the x402 ecosystem has reached approximately 280,000 transactions within 24 hours, which is double the data from the previous 30 days, with a trading amount of around $246,000. More importantly, the market enthusiasm has not faded; instead, it has shifted from the speculation of meme coins to application targets.

x402 Market enthusiasm remains strong: 24-hour volume exceeds the past 30 days

Regardless of how the market views the rapid surge of $PING , $PING has indeed opened up recognition for the x402 protocol among players in the community. Before the surge of $PING , the data of the x402 ecosystem over the past 30 days showed that the minting interface of $PING received over 150,000 x402 transactions, amounting to approximately $140,000, far surpassing the second place, Questflow, which had only 24,800 transactions and an amount of less than $1,400.

But today, the data from just 24 hours has already far exceeded the data from the past 30 days. In the past 24 hours, the top 10 services by interaction activity have already received about 280,000 transactions, which is already 2 times the data from the previous 30 days. Meanwhile, the amount reached about $246,000, which is also 2 times the data from the previous 30 days.

This continuous data growth proves that the x402 protocol is by no means a passing fad and is still popular in the market. Unlike many protocols that experience a rapid rise due to hype in the short term and then quickly cool down, x402 demonstrates stronger vitality and sustainability.

The hype shifts from Meme to application

As the first meme coin born from the x402 protocol, $PING was once compared by many players to the first token of the BRC-20 protocol, $ORDI , during the most FOMO phase. However, after once breaking through a market capitalization of 80 million USD, $PING has not been able to continue its rapid rise and has currently retraced to a market capitalization of about 29 million USD.

The driving force behind meme coin relies on market sentiment. After the tweet from CEX CEO Star with the screenshot of $PING appeared, there was a short-term lack of tweets that could better drive market sentiment, and the pullback of $PING was also within reason. Unlike the BRC-20 and other inscription asset protocols, the x402 protocol itself is a protocol that focuses on payment + AI Agent, so players' enthusiasm and funds have not withdrawn from the x402 protocol, but have shifted to the applications related to the x402 protocol ecosystem.

$PAYAI took the initiative and became the new leader of the x402 protocol. Yesterday, the market capitalization of $PAYAI briefly surpassed 76 million USD, marking an increase of about 12 times since October 24. Currently, the coin has experienced a pullback, with a market capitalization of approximately 53 million USD. This is mainly attributed to two factors.

$PAYAI Core Advantages of the Rise:

Second Largest Facilitator in the Ecosystem: Currently, Payai is the second largest Facilitator in the ecosystem (after the largest compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the United States), providing verification and settlement services on the x402 protocol chain, having processed over 14% of x402 transactions.

Core Contributor Background: Payai founder Notorious is ranked 7th among contributors on the official Github of the x402 protocol, understood by players as “the project is closely linked to the x402 protocol.”

In addition to $PAYAI, $dreams, and other ecosystem-related tokens like $SANTA have also seen significant gains. Even some projects that only mentioned plans for x402-related initiatives experienced sudden surges in the past few days, such as Karum and Praxis. Currently, these projects have seen significant pullbacks after the short-term excitement subsided, and it is important to be aware of the risks associated with FOMO.

Each chain seizes layout x402 track

The popularity of the x402 protocol has not only attracted players, but also garnered attention from multiple chains. As an open protocol that is inherently designed to support multi-chain, Base chain, as the “home base,” goes without saying, while the development of x402 on Solana and BNB is also worth our attention.

Yesterday, Solana founder toly tweeted that “x402 is cool.” This tweet caused the $x402 meme coin to briefly exceed a market value of 4 million dollars on Trend.fun. Trends.fun founder mable then posted on social platform X proposing to hold the “x402 Solara Hackathon” event to look for good AI payment projects, receiving support from Jacob Creech, the global developer ecosystem lead at Solana.

$PAYAI, $dreams and other tokens with excellent market performance are on Solana, which currently has a certain advantage. The high performance and low cost characteristics of the Solana ecosystem are inherently suitable for high-frequency payment scenarios between AI Agents, providing a technical foundation for x402's development on Solana.

The official BNB chain Twitter also promoted 4 projects related to the x402 protocol yesterday, namely Unibase, pieverse, AEON.xyz, and TermiX AI. As one of the blockchains with the largest user base globally, the BNB chain's emphasis on x402 demonstrates the strategic value of the protocol.

Why won't x402 be a flash in the pan?

After analyzing the changes that occurred in the x402 ecosystem over the past week, we can answer why this protocol will not be short-lived. First, the main reason for the sustained popularity of x402 is its association with the largest compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. The biggest challenge this protocol needs to overcome for long-term development is first to get merchants to “spread out” and then for users to “adopt”. Since this is the protocol of the largest compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., and it has jointly established a foundation with CloudFlare, it theoretically has sufficient resources to promote large-scale adoption.

This is also why the x402 protocol, despite having some similar competitors like bitGPT's h402 and Radius's EVMAuth, has not seen the emergence of a plethora of new BRC-XXX protocols being crazily minted and issued like the BRC-20 back in the day. The brand of the largest compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the United States itself serves as a driving force for speculation among players. As the largest compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, its endorsement signifies regulatory compliance and institutional resources, which is a moat that other competitors find hard to replicate.

Secondly, compared to the early BRC-20, which had no narrative to rely on other than the issuance of new meme coins, the meme coin of x402 is essentially “the icing on the cake.” Players not only have meme coins but also a variety of application tags to choose from, and these tags align with the narrative of the protocol itself. Although there may be doubts about the immaturity of these applications, it doesn't matter to the players. As long as there is room for funds to move within the narrative, they won't all rush in at once and then all scramble to withdraw.

The x402 protocol is essentially an infrastructure protocol for payment + AI Agents. It allows for permissionless value exchange between AI agents, which is the infrastructure of the AI economy. As AI technology develops, collaboration and transactions between AI agents will become the norm, and x402 provides exactly this kind of infrastructure.

Investment Risks and Rational Outlook

It has been quite a long time since I have seen a fresh narrative like the x402 protocol that generates high enthusiasm among players in the coin circle, project parties, and even ecological parties. Not only have meme coins been extremely popular, but application coins have also returned to the attention of players, which is a good start.

However, no matter how optimistic one is about the prospects of the x402 ecosystem, it is important for everyone to be aware of the investment risks during periods of emotional overheating. In the short term, chasing after projects like Karum and Praxis, which have only been mentioned in plans, has already led to significant losses for many investors. A rational strategy is to focus on projects that truly play a key role in the x402 ecosystem, such as $PAYAI, which acts as a Facilitator, as well as those projects with actual application scenarios and technical accumulation.