Cloudflare launches stablecoin‑based Monetization Gateway for AI agents

Cloudflare introduced the Monetization Gateway, a platform that enables usage‑based payments for AI agents and machine‑to‑machine interactions. The service employs the open x402 protocol, which uses the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code, and settles transactions in stablecoins, allowing sub‑cent micropayments with near‑instant settlement and low fees.

The gateway lets developers charge for access to any resource protected by Cloudflare—APIs, datasets, web pages, and AI tools—by defining payment policies through the Cloudflare dashboard, API or infrastructure‑as‑code tools such as Terraform. Payments are verified at Cloudflare’s edge network, reducing latency while protecting origin servers from high‑volume payment traffic. The launch targets autonomous software that makes thousands of tiny requests per day, offering a new economic model where creators are directly compensated without traditional billing systems.