Why x402 Didn’t Fade After PING: Pay-Per-Use for the Web

Key takeaways: 

• x402 enables pay-per-use functionality on the internet.

• The current momentum is infrastructure-led, driven by Coinbase and Cloudflare.

• PING was a catalyst, but the real story is protocol adoption, not the token.

• You can test it quickly by spinning up an endpoint and verifying the 402 → pay → grant flow.

X402 is a straightforward way to enable pay-per-use on the internet. When you access a paid application programming interface (API) or file, the server responds with the web’s built-in “402 Payment Required” message, specifying…