x402 in 60 seconds
What it is, why the reported volume needs cleaning, and what the tools on this site measure, for readers who know markets better than crypto.
What it is. x402 is a web standard that lets software pay for a single request. A program asks a paid API for something; the API answers with a price (HTTP status 402, “Payment Required”); the program pays in USDC, a digital dollar, and gets its answer. Payments are often fractions of a cent and settle on Base, a public ledger anyone can read.
Why the volume needs cleaning. The ledger shows every payment, but not why it was made. Much of the activity is a wallet paying itself, a circle of wallets funded from one source, or a test. It is the same problem as reported versus real volume on early crypto exchanges, or wash trades in any thin market. I remove those payments, and each week roughly half of the dollars survive.
What the tools are, in market terms.
- Market dashboard: reported volume against real volume, with every adjustment shown.
- Price comps: comparable prices for a described service, like comps in a valuation.
- Endpoint status: settlement fails. Does the service answer, and does it charge the price it quotes?
- Best execution: the cheapest service for a task that actually works, as a broker owes a client.
Everything is computed from public data, and the method note lists every filter.