The Next Billion Blockchain Users Will Not Be Human
x402 has already cleared 100 million agentic payments. Venom CEO Christopher Louis Tsu on what a network built for machine customers needs.
The future of blockchain users will not be human, according to recent developments in the industry. The first billion users of blockchain infrastructure are expected to be machines, not humans. A protocol called x402, released by Coinbase, saw 100 million agentic transactions on the Base network within three quarters of its launch.
Major payment companies like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express have joined forces to create the x402 Foundation, indicating a shift in the industry. Machines prove to be more reliable customers than humans, as they evaluate factors such as finality time, fee structure, and reliability before executing transactions. This shift in customer behavior leads to a new market where infrastructure competes purely on technical characteristics, rather than brand strength.
Networks designed for these machines need sub-second finality, sub-cent fees, parallel execution, and account abstraction at the protocol level. The metrics that measured adoption in the past, such as active addresses, daily active users, and social followers, have become meaningless with the advent of autonomous agents. The networks that will dominate the next decade will be judged on volume settled, failures avoided, and cost per operation.
The next billion blockchain users will be invisible to humans, but their reliance on a robust and efficient network will be constant.
Written by urgent.news from HackerNoon's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
