Block adds Bitcoin Lightning support to x402 payments protocol
Block has joined the x402 Foundation and integrated Bitcoin Lightning into the open payment standard, which lets AI agents pay autonomously for data and services.

Key points
- Block said on Thursday that it has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the protocol.
- x402 is an open standard allowing AI agents and web services to pay autonomously for API access, data and digital services.
- The x402 Foundation launched in April under the Linux Foundation, backed by Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Coinbase and the Solana Foundation.
- Steve Lee, head of Block's Spiral initiative, said Lightning suits the low-cost, high-volume payments agentic commerce needs.
- Block said the move builds on its work on the Universal Commerce Protocol for AI-driven commerce aimed at small businesses.
Block has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the x402 payments protocol, as the company expands its push into payments for AI agents, CoinTelegraph reports. The company announced the move on Thursday, saying Lightning fits the low-cost, high-volume transactions that agentic commerce is expected to generate.
The x402 payments protocol is an open payment standard that lets AI agents and web services pay autonomously for API access, data and digital services. By adding Lightning, Block is positioning Bitcoin's layer-two network as a settlement option for machine-to-machine transactions that would be too small or too frequent for traditional card rails.
Steve Lee, who heads Block's Bitcoin development initiative Spiral, framed the integration as a step toward wider everyday use of Bitcoin. He said bringing Lightning to x402 is a concrete move toward making Bitcoin everyday money for people and the agents acting on their behalf, and that the company wants the industry to build on it.
Block joins x402 Foundation
Block is not alone in backing the standard. The x402 Foundation launched in April under the Linux Foundation, with support from Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and crypto firms including Coinbase and the Solana Foundation. Block now joins that group, giving the protocol another large payments-focused participant.
According to the company's announcement, the move builds on Block's participation in the Universal Commerce Protocol, an effort to enable AI-driven commerce for small businesses. That work and the x402 integration point in the same direction: infrastructure for software agents that transact without a human in the loop.
The announcement lands as payments firms and crypto companies compete to define how AI agents will pay for goods and services. CoinTelegraph also noted related activity, including Visa working with the parent of South Korean exchange Upbit on stablecoin payments and AI commerce.
Lightning for agent payments
For readers, the significance is less about any single transaction than about who sets the rules for agent payments. If AI agents become routine buyers of data and compute, the standards they settle on could shape which networks and tokens carry that traffic.