Stunned, upon closer inspection, this is a $2,000 question. Let's answer it with some apprehension:

1) x402 is essentially a protocol standard just like HTTP. We cannot buy coins for HTTP, but companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, built on HTTP, have created a prosperous internet era.

The standard itself is not valuable, but the ecological infrastructure and application layer built around the standard will capture value beyond our imagination. This point undoubtedly speaks to the future potential value of the x402 track.

2) In the web2 era under HTTP, we have witnessed that the beneficiaries are the giants who control traffic entry and data. In contrast, x402 is just a beginning. Clearly, PING has already achieved a wave of success through the narrative of the MEME effect, but the short-term effect of MEME will not last long.

The upstream and downstream infrastructure of the x402 track includes participants at various levels such as Facilitators, Providers, launchpads, and Applications, all of whom have the opportunity to share in the benefits.

For example, if a Facilitator can break free from the constraints of being a pure gas fee payment tool and become a new type of payment gateway and aggregator with Pay to Earn potential, then the larger the transaction volume it gathers, the greater the potential for profit extraction.

Similarly, if Providers like questflow and daydreams can build a complete Agent Pay infrastructure while also activating the potential of the Agentic economy from the source, they will naturally become new attention distribution and traffic entry points for x402, and their commercial value should not be underestimated.

Of course, if a new type of Launchpad around x402 can liberate the market from the unfair launch platforms of the Bounding Curve and the nihilistic MEME culture, it will also spark a wave of pragmatic asset issuance narratives, creating ample opportunities for the Launchpad itself.

As for the Base chain and Circle stablecoin issuer, which are the originating ecosystems of x402 Crypto, x402 serves as a key channel linking Google and Coinbase's web3 business payment scenarios with the web3 on-chain financial ecosystem, making it even more significant.

3) Where are the Alpha opportunities for retail investors? Responsibly speaking, it is certainly not in pure MEME speculation. MEME speculation can quickly kickstart a narrative but can also extinguish a good narrative just as fast, as most MEMEs are zero-sum games. Given the current environment of liquidity exhaustion, the risks of pure PVP far outweigh the opportunities.

In the long run, retail investors can focus on innovations at key nodes in the upstream and downstream of the x402 track, such as innovative gameplay based on x402 on the Base chain, explorations of payment aggregation by Facilitators, or entirely new Mint methods from new launchpads. Additionally, initiatives like Kite AI, which is backed by PayPal and aims to build high-performance, high-concurrency chain infrastructure and ecosystems for Agent Pay, also hold significant innovative potential.

In summary, pure PVP retail investors can step back; the real Alpha lies in sustained attention to the x402 track and a deep understanding of a series of subsequent micro-innovations.

Alpha will certainly come from areas where the potential has yet to be discovered by the masses, and where a few have already positioned themselves in advance. The x402 track possesses this potential.

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