{"month":"2026-05","brief":{"id":"brief-2026-05","type":"monthly_brief","slug":"machine-economy-2026-05","month":"2026-05","headline":"x402’s first anniversary: protocol real, independent demand still scarce","summary":"A year after Coinbase’s launch, SDKs, facilitators and edge vendors existed. Public independent payer proof for most sellers remained thin. Listing count is not demand.","whyItMatters":"Watch distinct payers, calls per payer and repeat use — and refuse to invent them.","whatToWatch":"Watch distinct payers, calls per payer and repeat use — and refuse to invent them.","eventAt":"2026-05-28","sourcePublishedAt":"2026-05-28","zfiniaPublishedAt":"2026-09-07T00:00:00.000Z","retrospective":true,"evidenceTier":"TIER_C","sourceName":"zFinia retrospective synthesis","sourceType":"zfinia_original","sourceUrl":"https://zfinia.com/archive/2026-05","official":false,"risk":"low","newsroomState":"PUBLISHED","methodology":"Original zFinia monthly brief. Event date is the month being described. zFinia publication date is 2026-09-07. Claims are limited to previously sourced official records in this archive plus labelled inference.","clusterKey":"id:brief-2026-05","publicationGate":{"autoPublish":false,"state":"SUMMARY_READY","review":"CORROBORATE","reason":"AMBIGUOUS_OR_SYNTHESIS"},"ingestedAt":"2026-09-10T12:13:11.596Z","updatedAt":"2026-09-10T12:13:11.596Z"},"timeline":{"schemaVersion":"zfinia-newswire-1","entity":"2026-05","generatedAt":"2026-09-10T12:13:11.596Z","items":[],"usageRights":"Caller may use returned JSON for their own systems. A single call does not grant redistribution of the full zFinia corpus as a competing archive. HTML pages are not the canonical bulk database."}}