Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author｜Golem ( @web3_golem )

2025 is about to enter the summary stage. I thought that the crypto industry would end this year with key plot points such as Bitcoin failing to outperform gold, the overall weakness of the Meme market, Wall Street's collective embrace of DAT, Binance's "all-powerful" strategy, and the Trump family becoming the biggest winners in crypto. What surprised me is that at the end of the year, I can still see the crypto AI narrative become popular again.

On October 18th, the AI trading competition held by nof1 , an AI laboratory focusing on financial markets, initially sparked widespread market attention to AI this year. Six mainstream AI models conducted real crypto transactions on Hyperliquid with an initial capital of US$10,000. This competition not only reignited the crypto circle's imagination about "AI cryptocurrency trading," but also successfully gained attention from the AI industry.

The following week, PING, the first token issued via the x402 protocol, launched with a bang. The hype, "Potentially a replica of the 2023 inscription craze," drove its market capitalization from zero to $80 million in a matter of days. This wealth effect also led to a surge in attention for the x402 protocol. This open protocol, which enables AI agents to implement autonomous internet payments, reignited market enthusiasm for the AI + Crypto combination, bringing narratives like the AI agent economy and the era of internet micropayments to the forefront.

According to Coingecko data , the overall market value of the x402 ecosystem has exceeded US$8.14 billion , an increase of 186.8% in the past 24 hours alone.

This grand occasion not only evokes memories of the first wave of AI agent enthusiasm in the crypto industry in 2024, but coincidentally, the sector's full explosion also occurred at the end of the year. The first AI autonomous agent token, GOAT, reshaped the market's perception of the integration of AI and crypto. The "scholarly debate" over the superiority of AI frameworks like ai16z Eliza, swarms, and GAME is still vivid in our minds. The narratives of various specialized and domain-specific AI agents were endless, but these are now a thing of the past.

So, how long will this wave of enthusiasm, led by the x402 protocol and with AI-agent autonomous payment as the main narrative, last ?

Has the AI hype improved compared to 2024?

In the first wave of AI Agent craze in 2024, although it was the AI robot truth terminal that opened Pandora's box, the subsequent market hype mainly focused on AI frameworks and certain specialized AI agents, such as on-chain transaction agents, DeFi agents, live broadcast agents, metaverse agents, payment agents, etc.

During the peak of market sentiment, prices for both AI frameworks and specialized AI agents were highly inflated. Market valuations for mainstream AI frameworks like ai16z even reached tens of billions of dollars (a figure that has not been achieved today). Although the AI agent bubble eventually burst and speculators retreated, some investors still believe that AI agents represent a promising sector for long-term development in the crypto space. While the hype will eventually subside, the bubble will burst, and attention will wane, as long as AI agent infrastructure and application projects continue to develop, a second wave of growth is certain to be even more intense than the first.

"Sell in a bull market and build in a bear market" has always been the consensus among those who believe in the cycle theory.

Meanwhile, the first wave of AI agent hype in 2024, whether it's AI-powered payment tools facilitating transactions or applications supporting inter-agent business transactions, saw a significant amount of infrastructure and specific project development, with investors considering these areas a potential explosion in 2025. However, the explosively popular x402 protocol isn't built on the infrastructure of this initial wave of AI agent hype. In short, while the narrative of AI-powered transactions remains consistent from 2024 to today, there's no clear connection between the two phases in terms of technology and infrastructure.

The x402 protocol, launched by Coinbase in May 2025, aims to enable AI agents to make instant stablecoin payments directly over HTTP. Coinbase was already developing autonomous transactions for AI agents as early as 2024 (Related Reading: AI Sends Coins to AI? An Interpretation of Coinbase Facilitating the First AI-Agent Crypto Transaction ) . The 402 status code, used at the core of the x402 protocol, can be traced back to the original HTTP design by Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web, in the 1990s. Coinbase enabled this status code, indicating "payment required."

It seems that the x402 protocol doesn't actually present a significant technical barrier to entry. What's valuable is the moment of inspiration that led to the decision to introduce the 402 status code into the AI agent economy. This approach is simple and elegant, solving the value exchange problem for AI agents with just a few lines of code. It also seamlessly integrates with crypto, challenging existing internet payment models.

Compared with the first wave of AI Agent craze in 2024, it is difficult to say that this AI hype based on the x402 protocol has any leverage. Although the narrative overlaps to some extent, both the infrastructure and related applications have been promoted to new levels. The technology and infrastructure are being reconstructed, and the application is still in its early stages.

Same problem: too early

One reason the first wave of AI agent enthusiasm in 2024 fizzled out after the hype was a lack of product-market fit (PMF). Neither AI frameworks nor practical AI agents like DeFi agents found a solid business model or user base. On the one hand, investors believed in the compelling narrative of AI + Crypto, but on the other, the field remained in its early stages , with unfriendly product experiences and unrealized visions. Speculators were unable to convert users, ultimately resulting in a mess.

x402 faces the same problem. While the narrative of AI-powered autonomous payments is certainly appealing, is now truly the "right time" for user adoption ? According to x402scan data , the x402 protocol ecosystem saw only $2.153 million in total payments, serving only 99,300 buyers and supporting only 8,051 paid sellers. However, the x402 protocol's market capitalization has already exceeded $8 billion. This is a market supported by fewer than 100,000 users, and its market capitalization is significantly disconnected from actual usage.

Of course, market sentiment always spreads faster than market development itself. The x402 protocol is in its early stages, and we can say it still has a long way to go. But when the first wave of AI agent enthusiasm hit in 2024, we also said the future was full of possibilities. And what happened? People themselves tore it down, and now they're rebuilding it.

A victory for IQ 100

Making money is the primary goal of every crypto investor. However, when a narrative rapidly gains momentum, most people tout its enormous potential and teach you how to seize the opportunity and rush in, but few advise you on when to exit. In the speculative crypto market, we often trade on emotions, which are fleeting and leave no room for hesitation or hesitation. Furthermore, as new capital in the crypto market decreases, traditional finance focuses on DATs, RWAs, and stablecoins. The market environment for native cryptocurrencies, which only have existing capital, has deteriorated further. A major hotspot every seven days, a minor one every three days. Only investors with IQs of 50 or 150 can profit in this market, while ordinary investors with IQs of 100 are left at a loss.

But the emergence of the x402 protocol has given everyone hope. Although the x402 protocol craze is not based on the first wave of AI Agent craze, the general direction of AI+Crypto is still one of the mainstream trends, and the x402 ecosystem still has the opportunity to become a high-rise building.

The wealth created by the meme coin PING has drawn market attention and funding to the x402 ecosystem. However, the market hasn't continued to hype the hollow meme coin, instead shifting its focus to concrete projects with solid fundamentals, such as PayAI, Daydreams, Kite AI, and Unibase. PING has fulfilled its historical mission, and perhaps future generations will look back and see the x402 ecosystem as having shifted from hype to practicality.

This may be a victory for those with 100 IQs, and x402 will replicate the AI-driven wealth creation of late 2024. This is because ordinary investors can now follow familiar patterns to decide whether to buy or sell a specific asset: analyzing the project, comparing the pros and cons of different technical solutions, and basing their decisions on actual product delivery and the team's vision, rather than following on-chain trends, believing in so-called conspiracies, or crowding around crypto celebrities waiting for a tweet.