đš Before x402
Transaction Layer Only
- AgentKit relied on ERC-4337 account abstraction.
- Every payment or on-chain action was executed as a UserOp (User Operation).
- The 0xGasless bundler handled submission, and a paymaster covered gas fees.
No Payment Protocol Layer
- Agents could send tokens, swap tokens, or trigger smart contracts, but there was no structured âpaymentâ concept, each transfer was just a raw transaction.
- There was no formal request, acknowledgment, or service-for-payment logic between agents.
Centralized or Manual Logic
- Apps or devs had to manually build payment workflows on top of the SDK (for example, calling smartTransfer() or sendTransaction() APIs).
- The system didnât understand why the payment happenedâjust that it happened.
- There was no reputation, verification, or negotiation layer between agents.