The exchange for the debt economy
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Ripple has joined the newly launched x402 Foundation as a premier member, aligning the XRP Ledger and its RLUSD stablecoin with an open payment protocol designed to let artificial intelligence agents and web applications transact directly over the internet. The Linux Foundation announced the formal launch of the initiative on July 15, backed by 40 founding organizations that span global payments, cloud computing, e-commerce, and blockchain infrastructure.
The foundation takes over stewardship of the x402 protocol, which was originally developed by Coinbase and has now been fully contributed to the open-source community. The protocol embeds payment capability into standard HTTP requests, enabling software to exchange value without human intervention or separate checkout flows. Coinbase completed the transfer of the protocol as the foundation began operating under an open governance model.
Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation, said artificial intelligence agents have become active participants in the global economy but still lack a native and secure way to transact online. He added that the foundation aims to establish an interoperable payment layer capable of supporting digital commerce across different industries.
The premier membership tier includes Ripple alongside Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Adyen, Fiserv, Shopify, Google, Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, Circle, MoonPay, the Solana Foundation, and the Stellar Development Foundation. General members include Injective, the NEAR Foundation, Polygon Labs, and World Liberty Financial. Associate members range from the Cardano Foundation and Casper to the BSV Association and the Japanese Contents Blockchain Initiative.
Ripple said the XRP Ledger already supports the x402 protocol, allowing AI agents to complete transactions using XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin. The company described the infrastructure as a way for automated applications to send payments as seamlessly as they exchange information. Markus Infanger, Senior Vice President of RippleX at Ripple, said AI agents need payment systems that match the speed and reliability of internet communications. He added that Ripple has built the tools needed to support x402 while helping establish consistent payment standards across the broader ecosystem.
The foundation’s governance model is designed to prevent vendor lock-in by giving developers, cloud providers, financial institutions, and payment companies a voice in the protocol’s future. It supports multiple payment methods, including payment cards, stablecoins, and blockchain-based assets.
Several founding members outlined how they expect x402 to support AI-driven commerce. Circle said the protocol allows AI agents to make low-cost USDC payments through standard web requests. Stripe said it plans to help businesses accept payments from AI agents, while Visa emphasized the need for interoperable payment networks as automated commerce expands.
Ripple has been steadily building infrastructure for AI-driven payments in recent months. In June, the company introduced the XRPL AI Starter Kit to simplify automated payment development and supported the launch of the XRPL AI Hub through Ripple-backed t54.ai alongside the XRPL Foundation. Earlier in July, the XRPL Foundation confirmed that the network surpassed one million agentic transactions, a milestone reflecting growing developer activity and increasing use of automated payment workflows across the ecosystem.
The x402 Foundation launch signals broad industry backing for a common standard that can serve both traditional finance and digital assets. By bringing together payment networks, blockchain platforms, and major technology companies under a single governance framework, the initiative aims to build the payment layer for an economy in which software agents increasingly act on behalf of users.
Ripple’s participation strengthens the role of the XRP Ledger and RLUSD in that emerging landscape while positioning the company alongside the world’s largest payment networks in shaping the technical standards for internet-native transactions.
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