Analyst says x402 payment volume down 93% YTD as AI agent economy remains early

Jamie Coutts, a crypto market analyst at Real Vision, said x402 daily payment volume for autonomous AI agent payments has fallen 93% since the start of the year, suggesting the agent economy is still in its early stages. In a post on X, Coutts said he remains skeptical of claims that the agent economy has already arrived. He added that Cloudflare launched its Monetization Gateway on July 1, allowing fees for web pages, APIs, datasets, and MCP tools to be collected in x402-based stablecoins. Coutts projected related activity will begin to increase in earnest in the fourth quarter as use of AI agent-based tools rises.