Glossary

Machine Payments Protocol

An emerging standard for enabling autonomous, real-time payments over HTTP, often used for pay-per-use APIs or microtransactions. It allows machines or agents to handle payments without human intervention.

Also known as x402

Related stories

• Algorand's new CEO inherits a 2027 quantum deadline and an undisclosed K3 Labs role William Herkelrath began as Algorand Foundation CEO on Aug. 31. He inherits a 2027 post-quantum deadline, a live agentic-payments contest, a four-person board that lost its two DeFi-legal directors, and an undisclosed overlap with the company he co-founded.
• Algorand ships AC2, an open protocol that keeps AI agents off users' keys Algorand Foundation's AC2 protocol lets users approve AI agent actions — payments, code commits, API calls — with a passkey while private keys never leave their device.
• Genfinity's recaps chart Algorand's staking surge — from 1,398 nodes to 3,894 Genfinity is the Web3 media brand whose monthly Algorand recaps turned the 4.0 upgrade, real-time staking, and AlgoKit 3.0 into a year of sourced, intermediate-friendly coverage.
• Algorand's post-quantum v5.0.0 nears mainnet after 90% node-support vote Algorand's v5.0.0 — native Falcon-1024 post-quantum accounts, usage-based fees, a bigger AVM — cleared 90% node support Aug 15 and activates on mainnet around Aug 22 after a seven-day cooldown.
• Algorand Foundation Names Bruno Martins CTO as Post-Quantum Upgrade Heads to Mainnet Bruno Martins, twice acting CTO, takes the role permanently as the merged Algorand Foundation ships v5.0.0 — the first deliverable of its post-quantum roadmap.
• x402-winning Verun charges AI agents 0.01 USDC per trust verdict on Algorand Verun, the BCP Partners-built trust layer that won its track at Algorand's June x402 hackathon, scores AI agents 0-1000 via validator consensus and sells each verdict for 0.01 USDC, anchored on Algorand Testnet.
• Algorand Foundation's Aug 25 x402 workshop follows a 75M-transaction month The Algorand Foundation's hands-on x402 workshop returns Aug 25 to teach payer clients and payment-gated APIs, as the protocol logs 75.4M monthly transactions — and an independent audit counts $841K of real volume.
• CompX's x402 agent APIs are live on mainnet — and its own bots are the main payers CompX, the Algorand DeFi suite that grew out of xBacked's xUSD stablecoin, now sells pay-per-request data to AI agents via two x402 APIs — Canix402 and Amarok — with its own bots accounting for nearly all paid traffic so far.
• Algorand Foundation absorbs builder Algorand Technologies, pledges $15M for protocol work The company that built Algorand has been folded into its Foundation: IP, protocol development and staff moved in March, and algorandtechnologies.com now serves the unified homepage built around the 2027 post-quantum roadmap.
• Algorand's Global x402 Challenge passes 60 live paid endpoints The Algorand Foundation's pay-per-request AI-commerce challenge is mid-flight with 60 live endpoints and $19.8K settled, as v5.0.0 brings native post-quantum accounts to mainnet around August 22.
• Algorand Foundation's U.S. return hits six months as GENIUS Act rules take proposed form Six months after moving its headquarters to Delaware, the Algorand Foundation has its board, ecosystem council and unified protocol team in place — and the stablecoin rules it bet on are finally in proposed form.
• Algorand Foundation's 'event listing' page is a request form, not a calendar Algorand Foundation's info.algorand.foundation event page is a HubSpot-hosted request form, not a published calendar; listings live on algorand.co/events, currently filled through October 2026.