x402 protocol revived the HTTP 402 status code from 1997 to let AI agents pay for API calls with USDC embedded in HTTP headers. no accounts. no API keys. payment is the credential. 207m transactions. $50m volume. 480,000 agents. 100,000 services. $0.27 average payment size. AWS Bedrock integrated it natively. first time a major cloud provider embedded crypto payment rails at infrastructure level. fortune 500 companies can now deploy agents that settle in USDC on Base through AWS. 85% of all agentic payment ...