Tiny x402 payments expose the approval gap holding AI agents back

Agentic payment protocol x402 volume collapsed roughly 77% from its November 2025 peak of $5.15 million to $1.19 million by May 2026. Meanwhile, transaction count fell only 41% from its December 2025 peak of 4.85 million, then rebounded to 2.89 million in May, up 12.5x from a February trough, with an average transaction size of [ ]