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The agent economy just got a Cardano rail, according to a recent major update. In an X post, the Cardano Foundation shared that Cardano is now part of the official x402 SDK, opening the door for applications and AI agents to make payments using ADA and Cardano Native Tokens (CNTs).

"JUST IN: Cardano is now part of the official x402 SDK. Any app or AI agent can pay for an API call in ADA or any CNT over a web request," Cardano Foundation posted.

Being part of the official x402 SDK, API calls can be paid for in ADA by apps or AI agents, which can also use any CNT over a web request. This requires no account, no API key, and no checkout page, as every service already on x402 can switch Cardano on. "The agent economy just got a Cardano rail," the Cardano Foundation wrote.

x402 is the open HTTP payments standard that Coinbase created and the Linux Foundation now stewards.

The Cardano Foundation joined x402 as an Associate Member under the Linux Foundation in July 2026. Other members include Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, AWS, and Coinbase.

x402 is an open payment standard that revives the HTTP 402 status code so that applications and AI agents can pay per request in stablecoins without accounts, API keys, or a checkout page.

At the start of September 2026, the Cardano X account revealed that Cardano is in x402 as working code now, not only as a written specification. The payment mechanism is now merged into the x402 repository itself: client, server, facilitator, and examples that run end to end.

Cardano scores new milestones

As reported, the Cardano Foundation joined Mastercard's Crypto Partner Program as part of its Blockchains track. This will see it engage with Mastercard and other participants working across payments and stablecoins on areas including cross-border money movement, B2B transactions, and settlement.

In a separate development that has to do with scalability, Cardano's Ouroboros Leios developers have demonstrated about 1,000 TPS. They showcased a Leios node peaking at 250 TxkB/s, which equals roughly 1,000 simple Cardano transactions per second. Cardano mainnet currently tops out at 4.5 TxkB/s.