Kakao Pay launches x402 agentic commerce pilot ahead of KBW

I’ve been chipping away at this piece for almost two months, and I’m finally wrapping it up right before KBW and hitting publish 🤠

For contributions and reviews, I reached out one by one to people involved with x402 and got feedback from a good number of companies and builders (Coinbase, Circle, Monad, Google, Solana, and so on). I’m especially grateful to Kevin, a co-author of x402 at Coinbase, for all his help throughout the process. I promised to treat him to samgyeopsal in Korea next time.

After I sent the draft by email, a card company unexpectedly reached out saying they wanted to talk. I even remember being forced to wake up at 3 a.m. for a call. (Sadly, they said they needed four months for legal review, so with tears in my eyes… I just turned into a guy who had a late-night chat.)

I tried to pack in as much as possible while writing the report, and in the process of accommodating diverse perspectives, I learned a ton myself. In the end, it turned out to be an amazing opportunity not just to publish research, but also to learn from other people’s thoughts and viewpoints!

Right as I was getting the publication ready, Kakao Pay kicked off a PoC based on x402, which was a surprise. In any case, please read through it; about half of it reflects my conjectures, hypotheses, and perspective. If you have different views, I’m always open to discussion or questions! Go Agentic Commerce!