What is Base?

Base is a low-fee Ethereum Layer 2 network. x402 payments in Paywall are priced and paid in USDC on Base, which keeps per-call fees small enough for micropayments while remaining widely supported by wallets and agent runtimes.

Low transaction cost is the practical reason a network like Base fits pay-per-call: if you’re charging a cent per API call, the cost of moving the payment has to be a tiny fraction of that.