Coinbase or Stripe? The Gatekeeper's Deciding Vote
The debate between x402 and MPP protocols is a misdirection; the true battleground lies in which company—Coinbase or Stripe—will partner with Cloudflare to issue the NET Dollar stable币, a decision that will determine the dominant standard for machine payments on the internet.
Cloudflare, which handles ~20% of global web traffic, is central to addressing the surge in AI bot requests that have overwhelmed websites (e.g., Wikipedia saw a 50% traffic increase, and DiscoverLife faced near-paralysis from crawlers). Its "Pay to Crawl" system, which uses HTTP 402 responses to charge bots for access, requires a stablecoin for payments. While Cloudflare co-founded the x402 foundation with Coinbase, it hasn’t finalized the issuer for NET Dollar. Stripe’s recent launch of MPP (Machine Payment Protocol)—a competing but compatible standard—intensifies the race.
If Coinbase issues NET Dollar, x402 will likely become the default; if Stripe wins, MPP gains immense leverage. Cloudflare’s choice will shape how machines pay for access across the internet, making its partnership decision more critical than technical debates between protocols.
marsbit03/23 10:31
