Capability-Priced Micro-Markets: A Micro-Economic Framework for the Agentic Web over HTTP 402
Ken Huang, Jerry Huang, Mahesh Lambe, Hammad Atta, Yasir Mehmood, Muhammad Zeeshan Baig, Muhammad Aziz Ul Haq, Nadeem Shahzad, Shailja Gupta, Rajesh Ranjan, Rekha Singhal

TL;DR
This paper presents CPMM, a comprehensive micro-economic framework enabling secure, scalable, and efficient autonomous agent transactions on the web, integrating cryptographic security, micropayments, and negotiation protocols.
Contribution
It introduces a novel, unified system combining security, micropayment, and negotiation technologies, with formal economic analysis demonstrating convergence to efficient market equilibria.
Findings
CPMM converges to a constrained Radner equilibrium.
Introduces the concept of privacy elasticity of demand.
Provides a formal model for agent interactions in micro-markets.
Abstract
This paper introduces Capability-Priced Micro-Markets (CPMM), a micro-economic framework designed to enable robust, scalable, and secure commerce among autonomous AI agents on the agentic web. The framework addresses the fundamental challenge of economic coordination in decentralized agent ecosystems, where entities must transact with minimal human oversight. CPMM synthesizes three key technologies into a unified system: MIT originated, Project NANDA infrastructure for cryptographically verifiable, capability-based security and discovery; the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code, with modern X402/H402 extensions for efficient, low-cost micropayments; and the Agent Capability Negotiation and Binding Protocol (ACNBP) for secure, multi-step negotiation and commitment. The paper formalizes agent interactions as a repeated bilateral game with incomplete information, demonstrating…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMulti-Agent Systems and Negotiation · Mobile Agent-Based Network Management · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
