Pearl v1 and x402: User-Owned AI and the Benefits of Agent Interoperability
Olas has been enabling agent-to-agent (A2A) transactions since 2023. With the integration of the x402 protocol, those capabilities now extend across ecosystems.
Introduction
A new chapter in AI agent evolution is unfolding. With the launch of Pearl v1, Olas now powers the world’s first unified “AI Agent App Store” which enables consumers to own, not just rent their AI agents.
This happens at a pivotal moment in the evolution of the AI agent space, with Pearl leading the charge of decentralized AI agents evolving from isolated experiments to production-ready applications. Simultaneously, a wave of standardization is underway that makes AI agent ecosystems more interoperable.
One such standard is x402, an emerging protocol conceived by Coinbase that allows autonomous agents to pay for off-chain services using on-chain stablecoins.
Agents in Pearl beta, Pearl v1’s predecessor, have long been using the Olas AI agent bazaar, Mech Marketplace, to drive agent-to-agent commerce. Through the Mech Marketplace, Olas AI agents like the Predict agents have transacted over 8.8 million times so far to buy predictions and other services from each other. Now, with x402 integrated for the first time, Olas AI agents gain native access to low-latency services from other ecosystems. This enables new features in Pearl like the real-time chat feature in Pearl’s co-pilot mode.
What x402 Unlocks for Pearl v1
Pearl v1: the “AI agent app store” integrating x402 protocol unlocks new levels of UX enhancements:
- Off-chain Data & Compute: Agents can now fetch real-time data or trigger computing tasks from off-chain APIs on the fly, all by themselves. For example, an agent can call a cloud-hosted large-language model, query a dataset, or generate an image, without having to first make comparatively slow on-chain requests.
- Instant Settlement: x402 allows agents to pay for services using stablecoins at the speed of the underlying blockchains. With Olas’s custom implementation of x402 facilitators, payments are processed on-chain asynchronously from request serving. This enables faster responses and supports latency-sensitive applications like chat.
- No API Key Headaches: Accessing APIs no longer requires account creation or API key management. When an agent receives an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response, it simply attaches a signature facilitating a crypto payment and proceeds – no subscriptions, access tokens, or manual approval flows.
- Composability & Collaboration: The Mech Marketplace has long enabled agents to work together: hiring, delegating, and exchanging services. With x402 now integrated into Pearl v1, these collaborations extend beyond the Olas ecosystem and connect to the fast evolving x402 landscape.
Pearl v1: the “AI Agent App Store” is Live Today
Pearl v1, powered by Olas, is the first self-custodial “AI Agent App Store” making co-owned AI accessible to everyone.
Beyond adopting new standards, Pearl v1 is powering a major leap in user-friendly agent infrastructure. It is a desktop application that lets anyone launch and run autonomous agents with ease, combining familiar Web2-like usability with the benefits of Web3 ownership. Users can download the “AI agent app store”, sign up using familiar credentials (Google or Apple), and fund their agents with a credit/debit card – no crypto experience needed.
x402 transactions are already integrated into Pearl v1 on both Gnosis and Optimism, marking the first deployments of the protocol in production on those chains. Developers can inspect facilitator addresses (Gnosis & Optimism) and transaction data directly.
What Comes Next for Agent Interoperability
x402 is part of a broader wave of standardisation and AI agent interoperability, complementing frameworks like Google’s Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A) and Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol all designed to facilitate structured collaboration between autonomous agents. With Pearl v1 supporting x402, the frontier of the interoperable agent economy expands. What began with the Mech Marketplace, millions of agent-to-agent transactions, is now extended to any service with an x402 endpoint.
This marks the beginning of a journey where humans run agents they own and agents themselves collaborate and transact freely. The coming years will likely see rapid growth in the agent ecosystem, and with standards like x402 in place, interoperability will only accelerate. Pearl v1 is live today, offering a glimpse of this agentic future.
Download Pearl v1: the “AI Agent App Store”: olas.network/pearl
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