According to CoinMeta, Brian Armstrong predicts that stablecoins and artificial intelligence will reshape the way consumers pay for content on the internet, disrupting the current subscription model that dominates the web. In a tweet, he stated that stablecoins combined with the newly launched x402 payment protocol will improve the usability of both businesses and consumers in micro-payments and reduce friction during checkout. Armstrong is particularly optimistic about how x402 can disrupt online news subscriptions, arguing that people should not have to purchase monthly subscriptions just to read an article. Instead, AI assistants can be assigned to search for articles for consumers and automatically pay publishers for specific content. x402 technology is an open payment protocol first introduced by Coinbase in May 2025, aimed at transforming the HTTP 402 status code (which indicates “payment required”) into an automatic payment process, facilitating transactions between websites, applications, and AI assistants.