Cronos is doubling down on the convergence of artificial intelligence and digital payments with the launch of the x402 PayTech Hackathon, a global builder program that puts $42,000 in prizes on the line for AI-native payment applications. The initiative invites developers to design and deploy autonomous payment systems on the newly upgraded Cronos blockchain, positioning the network as a testing ground for the next generation of value-moving AI agents.
At the core of the hackathon is a simple premise: AI shouldn’t just analyse data or generate content — it should be able to initiate, route, and settle payments in real time. Teams are encouraged to build automated settlement flows, intelligent wallet experiences, and real-world asset (RWA) payment solutions that connect both to the Cronos network and to the broader Crypto.com ecosystem.
Mirko Zhao, Head of Cronos Labs, frames the program as a turning point for agentic finance, where software agents gain the ability to handle economic transactions directly. According to Zhao, the x402 PayTech Hackathon marks “the first wave of real-world experimentation where AI agents don’t just compute, but exchange value.” Backed by recent improvements to Cronos’ performance and a growing stack of AI-focused tooling, Zhao argues that the infrastructure is finally mature enough for ambitious teams to turn these ideas into production-ready applications.
Those infrastructure upgrades are central to the story. Over the past year, Cronos engineers have implemented optimizations that reportedly cut gas fees by about 90%, lowered block times to under one second, and helped push daily on-chain transactions to roughly four times their previous average. With lower latency and costs, the network is increasingly being positioned as a base layer for institutional tokenization initiatives and AI-driven financial infrastructure that demand reliable throughput and predictable fees.
The hackathon itself is structured to support teams across the entire build journey. Participants will gain access to technical workshops, office hours with Cronos Labs experts, and extensive documentation covering Cronos EVM, x402 programmatic payments, and the Crypto.com AI Agent SDK. This stack is designed to make it easier for developers to encode payment logic directly into AI agents, enabling features like conditional transfers, dynamic pricing, automated treasury management, and cross-application value routing.
Beyond the main prize pool, standout projects may receive support that extends beyond the hackathon timeline. Cronos Labs is opening doors to grants, incubator opportunities, and strategic collaborations within the wider Cronos and Crypto.com ecosystem. For teams with long-term ambitions, this creates a potential pathway from hackathon prototype to fully-fledged product with access to users, liquidity, and institutional partners.
Cronos already has a sizeable developer base and user footprint to plug into. More than 500 developers are building on its stack, and the network’s deep integration with Crypto.com gives successful applications a potential route to reach up to 150 million users worldwide. From a capital perspective, Cronos ranks among the top 15 blockchains by total value secured, with over $6 billion in user assets and more than 100 million on-chain transactions recorded since inception. This combination of liquidity, users, and infrastructure makes it an attractive venue for teams exploring AI-native financial products.
Zhao describes the hackathon as a “live proving ground” where AI agents are evaluated not only on their intelligence, but on their reliability in moving value. That includes how they handle security, edge cases, and real-world constraints such as network congestion or volatile token prices. In this sense, the competition doubles as a stress test for both the AI agents and the underlying blockchain.
The build phase of the x402 PayTech Hackathon runs from early December through late January, giving teams several weeks to prototype, iterate, and deploy. During this period, Cronos Labs is encouraging experimentation with a wide range of payment-centric use cases, from consumer-facing applications to institutional workflows.
Potential use cases for AI-native payments span multiple verticals. For retail and e-commerce, AI agents could act as automated checkout assistants that negotiate discounts, split bills across multiple wallets, or select the most cost-efficient settlement route in real time. In business-to-business contexts, agents could orchestrate just-in-time payments to suppliers based on inventory data, or dynamically adjust payment terms according to risk scores and performance metrics.
Real-world asset payments are another focal point. Developers are invited to explore how tokenized real estate, invoices, or commodities can be integrated into AI-led payment flows. For example, an AI treasury agent could automatically rebalance between stablecoins, tokenized bonds, and yield-bearing vaults, while ensuring periodic payouts to stakeholders according to pre-defined rules.
Intelligent wallet tooling is expected to be one of the most active categories in the hackathon. This includes smart wallets that can learn user preferences, enforce spending limits, detect suspicious activity, or bundle multiple microtransactions into a single on-chain operation to reduce fees. Integrated AI could also power natural-language interfaces, enabling users to instruct their wallets with simple prompts instead of manual transaction building.
From a technical standpoint, the x402 framework for programmatic payments plays a crucial role. It provides the primitives that allow AI agents to schedule, authorize, and execute payments on Cronos with fine-grained control. The Crypto.com AI Agent SDK then layers on tools to connect these agents to exchange infrastructure, on/off-ramps, and compliance modules. Together, these components aim to lower the barrier for teams that want to build sophisticated payment logic without re-engineering everything from scratch.
Security and compliance are likely to be central evaluation criteria, even if they are not always the most visible aspects of AI finance. As autonomous agents gain control over funds, questions arise around key management, permissioning, and fail-safes. Hackathon participants are expected to address issues such as multi-signature control, hardware-backed wallets, transaction whitelists, and fallback mechanisms that can pause or reverse actions in case of anomalies.
The hackathon also arrives at a time when the broader concept of “agentic finance” is gaining momentum. Instead of static smart contracts that execute only when manually triggered, agentic systems rely on continuously active AI agents that monitor data streams, react to events, and coordinate across multiple protocols. Cronos is aiming to position itself as one of the preferred settlement layers for this emerging paradigm, leveraging its EVM compatibility and ties to a major centralized platform.
For institutional players considering on-chain tokenization or automated liquidity management, the outcome of the x402 PayTech Hackathon could be a useful signal. Prototypes emerging from the event may showcase how AI can handle complex workflows such as collateral monitoring, margin calls, or cross-border treasury operations with minimal human intervention, all while settling on a public blockchain.
For independent builders and startups, the program offers both a proving ground and a potential launchpad. Teams that manage to combine robust AI models, sound tokenomics, and a clear value proposition for users stand to gain not just prize money, but visibility in front of investors, ecosystem partners, and early adopters. In a crowded fintech landscape, positioning as an “AI-native” payment product could become a differentiator.
Ultimately, the x402 PayTech Hackathon is less about a single event and more about seeding a new category of applications where AI and crypto are deeply intertwined. By offering capital, tooling, mentorship, and a production-ready network, Cronos is betting that the next wave of financial innovation will be driven by software agents that can understand data, make decisions, and move money — all at machine speed.