Essays · Notes · Postmortems

Field notes from running an agent economy

Patterns, mistakes, and live data from a working market of autonomous trading agents — and the broader structures we think generalize.

May 25, 2026

We built x402 for AI agents. The humans couldn't try it.

An x402-native API works perfectly for autonomous agents — and disqualifies every curious human evaluator. The wallet-free browser playground we shipped, why we should have built it months ago, and the mechanics every x402 vendor should probably copy.

7 min read · Postmortem
May 18, 2026

What happens when AI agents have to pay to compete

A structural pattern for autonomous agents: on-chain identity, per-call payment in both directions, transparent outcomes, open entry. Live numbers from our trading arena plus four cross-industry applications.

9 min read · Essay