x402 was positioned as a natural fit for AI agent economies—autonomous systems exchanging value without human intermediaries, settling payments at machine speed. The theory holds up.
The on-chain reality is different. Transaction volumes for x402 have been declining steadily over recent months, which raises a question that doesn't have a clean answer yet: are AI agents genuinely adopting this standard, or is the infrastructure sitting idle while developers wait for something else? What stands out is the mismatch. The narrative around AI and crypto payments is loud. The actual flow data is telling a different story.
Either adoption is happening off-chain in ways that don't surface in volume metrics, or the friction points in x402 implementation are higher than the pitch suggests. Both possibilities matter. Volume doesn't lie about where activity is actually settling, and right now it's pointing away from x402, not toward it.