[spir]

If micropayments have a future, it's on blockchains.

https://www.x402.org/

https://www.8004scan.io/networks

https://www.x402scan.com/

[Bratmon]

Why? What does adding a slow database to the process help?

[Zaskoda]

This sounds like a reflexive "I hate blockchain and cryptocurrency" reaction but I'll give a reply regardless.

You can't do transactions with just a database. You'd have to add a payment processor. Now things are getting wildly complex.

x402 is designed with agentic AIs in mind. AIs make mistakes. Having an immutable record that can't be tampered with is a nice layer of security.

And while I haven't worked with it personally, I understand x402 to be extremely straight forward for devs to implement.

[CobrastanJorji]

The argument I had originally heard was "the transaction costs of credit cards is so high, we need a system that works for many tiny payments. But of course, most of the cryptocurrency transaction fees are still pretty high, and a dedicated "tiny transaction" company would presumably be able to offer the same service for less cost than a distributed equivalent.

[littlecranky67]

It will be on bitcoin, and bitcoin only. Except the payment will done with Lightning. And the lightning network will probably be used to send a stablecoin, utilizing taproot assets. But shurely not some shitcoins that is x402 built on (Ethereum, Solana & Co.) :)

[Xiol]

This is all absolutely impenetrable.

[mmooss]

Micropayments already exist in the physical world: Venmo, Zelle, etc. It seems easier to just adapt them to the OP's purpose.

[b00ty4breakfast]

"if I keep jamming things into this hole, something will eventually fit, I just know it!"