The AI Payments Revolution Hits SF: Google, Coinbase, SKALE Launch x402 Hackathon

Three-day event offers $50k in prizes to developers building the future of AI-driven transactions on gas-free blockchain infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SKALE Network, in partnership with Google, Coinbase, Virtuals, Edge & Node, and Pairpoint by Vodafone, today announced that registration is now open for the San Francisco Agentic Commerce x402 Hackathon. The three-day hybrid event runs February 11-13, 2026, with $50,000 in prizes for developers building real-world applications that enable agents to transact autonomously. Developers and teams of all experience levels can register now at https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/x402

As autonomous agents move from experimentation to production, payments are becoming a foundational requirement. Agentic commerce depends on the ability for software to reliably transact: paying for services, purchasing goods, initiating subscriptions, and settling value in real time. Standards like x402 and AP2 are laying the groundwork for this shift by making payments programmable and interoperable across agent systems, enabling new classes of applications including pay-per-use APIs, automated subscriptions, machine-to-machine micropayments, and agent-driven storefronts.

Nalin Mittal, Product Manager Web3 at Google Cloud said of the event, “Google Cloud has been creating the tools to take agents from prototypes to production, giving teams a path to build, deploy, and operate agent systems. We can’t wait to see what builders create when those production-grade agent capabilities are applied to real commerce workflows end-to-end.”

SKALE Labs Co-Founder and CEO Jack O’Holleran added, “Agentic commerce is moving onchain, and for agents to operate in the real world they need private, secure, and scalable ways to transact. This hackathon brings together SKALE and partners across cloud, payments, telecom, and blockchain to give builders a place to experiment and ship. By combining onchain agents, SKALE’s privacy-preserving infrastructure, and x402 payments, we’re helping developers turn agentic commerce into something that works securely at real-world scale.”

Kevin Leffew, GTM Lead at Coinbase Developer Platform added, “We’re excited to join SKALE’s SF Agentic Commerce x402 Hackathon. We’ve been advancing the agent space by shipping x402 – an open payment protocol designed for agent-native, pay-per-use transactions – and developer tooling on CDP that helps teams move agentic workflows from experiments to production. We can’t wait to see the new agentic business models that emerge when onchain payments become a first-class primitive for autonomous agents.”

The hackathon brings together production-grade infrastructure from leading companies across Web3, AI, and payments. Participants will have access to SKALE’s gasless, instant transactions with privacy through the BITE protocol; Google Cloud’s A2A and AP2 for agent interoperability; Coinbase‘s x402 standard for internet-native payments; Virtuals’ Agent Launchpad for creating and launching agents; Edge & Node’s ampersend wallet and dashboard for managing agent payments; and Vodafone Business’s global connectivity and IoT infrastructure for machine-to-machine transactions.

All submissions are accepted online via Dorahacks, with optional in-person hacking at Edge & Node’s House of Web3 in the Presidio, San Francisco, a co-working space purpose-built for blockchain and AI developers. Projects will be judged by industry leaders in agentic commerce, with $50,000 in prizes awarded across overall awards and sponsor bounties. Build tracks and prize categories will be announced soon.

For more information and to register, visit https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/x402

About SKALE Labs
SKALE Labs is the team behind SKALE, a gas-free, EVM-compatible blockchain designed to bring Web3 to the masses. SKALE powers gaming, AI agents, social, and other high-performance applications with built-in privacy through the BITE protocol, already serving over 55 million wallets and saving users billions in fees. The network combines speed, scalability, and privacy to enable autonomous agents and unlock the next generation of blockchain applications.

SKALE Labs was founded in 2017 by Jack O’Holleran and Stan Kladko, PhD. As of 2025, the network serves over 55 million unique active wallets, has processed over 1.8 billion transactions, and has saved users over $12 billion in gas fees.

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SOURCE SKALE