#数字货币市场回升 x402 protocol why has it suddenly gone silent recently? It was clearly quite popular a while ago. In simple terms, x402 is an open-source payment standard created by a compliance platform in May 2025. It borrows the HTTP 402 status code, making cryptocurrency micropayments ( primarily through USDC) particularly seamless—specifically designed for AI agents, allowing direct transactions between machines without the hassle of account processes. Who is playing the best in the ecosystem now? Virtuals Protocol is one of them. Its position in AI agent payments is somewhat akin to Chainlink's presence in the oracle space—having processed hundreds of millions of agent transactions. The community regards it as "AI economic infrastructure," and some predict that its market value could double by 2026. After all, Gartner has claimed that the AI agent market could reach $30 trillion, which indeed presents a large scope for imagination. Compared to the more B2B-focused approach of $PAYAI, Virtuals resembles a decentralized agent market, suitable for long-term positioning. When it comes to $PAYAI, it has performed reasonably well on Solana. After integrating x402, it became a "proxy hiring platform", and recently won a hackathon award, which has boosted confidence a bit. However, let's not forget the previous -85% pullback — the market can be ruthless during panic, and whether it can rebound in the short term depends on whether ETF funds are willing to enter the market. Daydreams and Heurist are considered "mid-tier innovators", one focusing on creative applications and the other on data processing. Their market cap is not high, under 15 million dollars. However, the x402 fee rate is ridiculously low, with individual transactions costing less than 0.0001 dollars (, making them quite competitive in the AI micropayment sector. Developers often mention that integration is convenient, but liquidity during a bear market should be approached with caution. Ping? That feels more like a "narrative starting point". It was crazy last October, but now everyone is just watching. There isn't much practical use, it relies purely on sentiment, and is only suitable for ultra-short-term players to take a gamble. Overall, the x402 ecosystem has a clear hierarchy from Ping's pure storytelling to the infrastructure-level applications of Virtuals. The potential is definitely there; it just depends on how it will be implemented in the future.