PING launched the launch pad c402.market, aiming to make Pump.fun for the x402 ecosystem?

Original Title: “$PING Rebound 50%, Overview of the Launchpad Project based on $PING c402.market”

Original author: David

Source:

Reprint: Mars Finance

x402 The narrative has been hot for half a month, but not many new assets have emerged.

The reason is that x402 tends to be a payment service between AIs, which does not conform to the common “asset creation” approach in cryptocurrency.

Another reason is that most of the crypto projects surrounding the x402 protocol are focused on infrastructure, benefiting more from the hype of the technological narrative rather than having substantial progress in tangible products in the short term.

The first asset created based on x402, $PING (, although it is a meme, has instead become the one that takes the lead in making things happen.

On November 10, the official PING Twitter account @pingobserver announced the launch of the token launch platform c402.market based on the x402 protocol, which is expected to go live at 10 PM that evening.

Once the news broke, the price of PING tokens quickly surged from the daily low, with a 24-hour increase of nearly 50%.

In short, the core mechanism of c402.market is that all newly issued tokens on the platform will default to be paired for trading with $PING .

In other words, PING is no longer just a meme token of the x402 narrative, but has transformed into the “base currency” of the entire c402 ecosystem. If you want to participate in new projects on the platform, you need to hold PING.

This also belongs to the old routine. The Pump.fun in the Solana ecosystem has made SOL a necessity for meme dog-fighting; the various launchpads on the Base chain have given ETH practical use cases.

And now c402.market is trying to have PING play a similar role in the x402 ecosystem.

At this point in time, we are in a divergence period between bulls and bears. Some people believe that the market is in a bear market, and there is no new narrative, so they are not optimistic about the updated assets; while others believe that the altcoin season is coming in a way that you might not expect, and there are certainly local opportunities within it.

With the trading data of the x402 protocol experiencing a rebound, perhaps creating a more trading-oriented and asset-generating x402 concept launchpad could represent a localized opportunity within the current market conditions.

However, can PING transition from a simple meme coin to what is called an ecological currency? For ordinary investors, what opportunities are there, and what pitfalls are hidden?

Quick review of x402 and PING

For those who are not familiar with x402, here is a quick summary:

x402 is an open payment protocol launched by Coinbase in May 2025, allowing websites, APIs, and AI agents to make payments directly using stablecoins (, primarily USDC), without the need for accounts, passwords, or API keys.

Its core mechanism is very simple, which we also introduced one month ago. In simple terms, when you access a paid service, the server returns HTTP status code 402 (, which is a “Payment Required” code that has existed in internet protocols for a long time but has not been enabled, informing you how much you need to pay.

You send an on-chain payment using a wallet, then request again, and the server grants you access X402 after verification. The entire process can be completed within 2 seconds, with zero fees.

The reason why x402 can become popular is closely related to ), as the latter truly brought about a wealth effect.

$PING is the first token issued through the x402 protocol. Users do not need to register an account on the website; they just need to visit a URL, receive the prompt “402 requires payment,” pay a small amount of USDC, and upon re-requesting, they will receive PING tokens.

This coin itself doesn't actually have much use, it's more like a meme, but it carries the aura of “this is the first coin generated using x402,” which feels a bit like the last wave of inscriptions. So there has been a lot of speculation around it in the past month, and at the beginning of its launch, it surged 30 times at one point, with a market cap that even exceeded 60 million USD.

However, after PING became popular, the x402 ecosystem fell into an awkward situation:

The protocol is cool, the technical narrative is strong, and the backing from giants is solid; however, apart from PING, this meme coin, the ecosystem lacks more “assets” that people can participate in. x402 feels more like a payment infrastructure rather than a coin issuance tool.

Most related projects are focused on AI Agent services and API markets, which are B2B businesses, far removed from the “trading needs” of ordinary crypto investors.

The market needs a place that can continuously produce new assets and allow retail investors to participate in early projects. This is the background for the emergence of c402.market.

You may not like this set, but defining it as pure hype without paying attention is another form of extreme behavior.

c402.market, x402 ecosystem's Pump.fun?

Visit the official website of c402.market, and you will see a concise and bold slogan:

“The mintpad for internet capital markets” $PING (the minting platform for internet capital markets)

That's right, it's the familiar ICP narrative again. Putting together the grand terms “Internet” and “capital market”, trying to drape something that is essentially just a token issuance platform in a revolutionary cloak.

In simple terms, c402.market is a token launchpad based on the x402 protocol, where anyone can quickly issue tokens, and these tokens will be automatically paired for trading with (.

Before discussing the launch mechanism, it is essential to understand what the “c402 token” is. c402 is an innovative token standard that essentially supports the x402 protocol and has a built-in public minting mechanism as an ERC-20 token. It is officially referred to as “internet coins” $PING internet tokens (.

This means that the tokens issued on c402.markets are not just ordinary ERC-20, but are inherently supported by the x402 payment protocol.

In theory, these tokens can be directly used for payment scenarios of AI Agents or any applications that require HTTP status code 402 to trigger payments. However, in reality, most people are more concerned about its speculative value rather than its technical features.

The launch mechanism of c402.market highly draws on the “Bonding Curve” model of Pump.fun, but has made some adjustments. The total supply of each token is fixed at 1 billion pieces, with no team allocation and no reserved shares.

According to the official documentation, the distribution structure of a launch token is:

· 49% distributed through public minting, each minting requires a payment of 1 USDC

· 49% automatically used for providing liquidity

· 2% as developer rewards

Minting Process:

1. Create a Token: Anyone can create a token by simply providing a name, code, description, and image. A “spam prevention” fee of 1 USDC is required for creation.

2. Wait for Minting to Start: After the token is created, it will automatically start minting after a fixed period of time. Interestingly, the official documentation has covered the specific time with █, which could be a few minutes to over ten minutes. The exact timing may only be visible after the product officially launches.

3. Flash Sale Phase: Users can mint tokens by paying 1 USDC. The number of mints is limited.

4. Automatic Listing: Once all minted shares are snapped up, the collected USDC will be processed automatically.

The principle of PING pairing: USDC → PING → liquidity pool

This is the most critical part of the entire mechanism and the core logic from which PING can benefit.

According to the description in the project's GitHub, once a c402 token is minted, all collected USDC will be used to purchase the paired token specified at creation, initially only supporting PING), which will then be added as liquidity to the pool and locked along with the remaining 49% of the token supply.

For example: Suppose someone creates a token named ( and chooses ) as the paired asset. The minting phase requires completing a certain number of transactions, assuming it is 10,000 transactions; that would be 10,000 USDC.

1. Minting Stage: Users purchase with USDC, 10,000 USDC has been collected.

2. Automatic Exchange: This 10,000 USDC is automatically purchased into ( through Uniswap.

3. Provide liquidity: The purchased PING + 490 million $COIN)49% supply$COIN will be added to the liquidity pool of Uniswap v4 and permanently locked.

4. Developer Rewards: 20 million $COIN$PING 2% of the supply $PING is given to the token creators.

What does this mechanism mean for PING?

Whenever a new token is successfully minted on c402.market, a forced buy order of USDC → PING is generated. If there are 10 projects successfully minted on the platform every day, with each project collecting 10,000 USDC, that amounts to a daily buy order of 100,000 USDC for PING.

This may also explain why the launch of c402.market is causing the PING price to surge by 50%, as the market is pricing in the expectation of sustained buying or a well-performing ecosystem in the future.

Who is making money?

The fee structure of c402.market is as follows:

For the minters:

· Each minting payment is 1 USDC

· 2% of which is the platform fee (0.02 USDC)

· Gas fees ( are very cheap on the Base blockchain, but you still need to pay ).

For token creators:

· Pay a “spam prevention” fee of 1 USDC when creating a token c402

· Receive 2% of the token supply as a reward

· Earn a 1% transaction fee share from liquidity pool trades paid in tokens ( part ) c402

The document also mentions that if you set up your own frontend and set yourself as the referrer (referrer), you can take the 2% platform fee, thus achieving zero platform fee minting.

Although initially only PING is supported as the pairing asset, the GitHub repository of c402.market has opened a “pairing token whitelist” submission mechanism on GitHub. Any project can submit a PR to apply for their token to be added to the pairing options, provided that they must have sufficient ( locked ) liquidity on Uniswap v3 or v4, and the JSON format and image specifications meet the requirements; after passing the review, manual whitelisting on-chain is also required.

This means that in the future, c402.market may support USDC, ETH, or other tokens as pairing assets, not just PING. But at least in the initial launch, PING is the only option.

It can be seen that c402.market is more inclined to incentivize token creators in its mechanism design, rather than just benefiting the minters and traders. But those who understand know that this may also lead to the platform being flooded with a large number of low-quality projects, as creators have economic incentives to continuously issue new coins.

As of the time of publication, c402.market just announced that it will go live on November 10th at 10 PM (. The official documentation also has many details covered by █, including specific minting times, time windows, “bribery mechanisms,” etc.

These may be to prevent bots from preparing in advance, or the team has not finalized yet.

The real test will only be evident after the first batch of projects goes live, the first batch of liquidity is formed, and the first batch of traders begins to engage in speculation.

Finally, asset creation and IPOs have always been the theme of the crypto market, and now it has just shifted to the x402 concept; in the current situation with not many new narratives, participating cautiously may be a pragmatic choice.