Block has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the x402 payment protocol as it expands its efforts to enable payments for artificial intelligence agents.
The company said Lightning could support the low-cost, high-volume transactions expected to be required for agentic commerce. Steve Lee, head of Block’s Bitcoin development initiative Spiral, said the integration could help make Bitcoin more practical for everyday payments made by people and AI agents acting on their behalf.
The x402 protocol is an open payment standard that allows AI agents and web services to autonomously pay for API access, data and digital services. The technology is designed to support automated transactions without requiring users to manually authorize each payment.
Block joins major technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, as well as crypto companies such as Coinbase and the Solana Foundation, in supporting the x402 Foundation. The foundation was launched in April under the Linux Foundation to advance the payment standard.
The move also builds on Block’s participation in the Universal Commerce Protocol, which aims to support AI-driven commerce for small businesses. With Lightning now integrated into x402, the initiative adds Bitcoin-based payments to the emerging infrastructure for automated AI commerce.
