HTTP 402 waited 27 years for this moment: the x402 Foundation and the agent economy

The x402 Foundation launched last week under the Linux Foundation. Google, AWS, Microsoft, Cloudflare, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Adyen - all founding members. Coinbase contributed the protocol. If you're building AI agents, this is the most important infrastructure news of the year. HTTP 402: Reserved Since 1999 HTTP status codes are how the web communicates. 200 means OK. 404 means not found. And 402? It means "Payment Required." This status code has been in the HTTP specification since 1999, but it was never actually implemented.