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x402 for AI Agents

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Agent Workflow

  1. Discover — Call free discovery API to find endpoints
  2. Evaluate — Search and check pricing before committing
  3. Pay — Sign payment and get data in single request-response cycle
  4. Consume — Parse standard GoldRush JSON responses

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x402 vs API Key for Agents

ConcernAPI Keyx402
ProvisioningRequires signup, key managementWallet is the credential
Budget controlMonthly plan, overage chargesPay exactly per request
Human involvementAccount creation, billing setupNone — fully autonomous
DiscoveryRead docs or hardcode endpointsProgrammatic endpoint discovery
Multi-agentShare key or provision per agentEach agent gets its own wallet

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Rate Limits

100 requests/minute per wallet. Check X-RateLimit-Remaining response header.
The x402 protocol was designed with machine-to-machine payments in mind. An AI agent with a funded wallet can autonomously access the full GoldRush API - no signup flow, no credentials to rotate, no billing portal, no human in the loop.

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Agent workflow

An AI agent interacting with GoldRush x402 follows four steps:

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1. Discover

Call the free discovery API to find available endpoints: 
curl https://x402.goldrush.dev/v1/x402/endpoints | jq
The response includes endpoint names, descriptions, credit rates, pricing models, and supported chains - everything an agent needs to decide what to call.

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2. Evaluate

Search for relevant endpoints and check pricing before committing: 
# Find balance-related endpoints
curl https://x402.goldrush.dev/v1/x402/search?q=balance | jq

# Check pricing for a specific endpoint
curl https://x402.goldrush.dev/v1/x402/endpoints/get-token-balances-for-address | jq
The agent can compare credit rates against its budget and select the right tier for variable-length responses.

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3. Pay

Using the x402 client, the agent signs a payment and gets data in a single request-response cycle: 
import { HTTPClient } from "@x402/core";
import { ExactEvmScheme } from "@x402/evm";

const client = new HTTPClient({
  scheme: new ExactEvmScheme({
    network: "eip155:84532", // Base Sepolia (testnet)
    privateKey: process.env.WALLET_PRIVATE_KEY,
  }),
});

const balances = await client.get(
  "https://x402.goldrush.dev/v1/eth-mainnet/address/0x742d.../balances_v2/"
);
No OAuth, no API key provisioning - the agent just needs a funded wallet.

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4. Consume

Responses use the same JSON format as the standard GoldRush API. Any existing parsing logic works unchanged.

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Why x402 for agents

ConcernAPI Keyx402
ProvisioningRequires signup, key management, rotationWallet is the credential
Budget controlMonthly plan, overage chargesPay exactly per request
Human involvementAccount creation, billing setupNone - fully autonomous
DiscoveryRead docs or hardcode endpointsProgrammatic endpoint discovery
Multi-agentShare key or provision per agentEach agent gets its own wallet

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Rate limits

Each wallet is rate-limited to 100 requests per minute. The X-RateLimit-Remaining response header shows how many requests remain in the current window.