What is "DNS for money"?
"DNS for money" resolves a human-readable name like pay:yourname into the payment instructions for the rail it settles on, the way DNS resolves a domain into an IP address. DNS://Money does it for AI agents and people: XRPL and RLUSD settle today, and agents pay over x402 on Base, Solana, Algorand and X Layer.
What the name resolves to
"DNS for money" is an analogy, and it has nothing to do with running DNS servers or flipping domains. The internet gave every server a name so humans stopped memorizing IP addresses. DNS://Money gives every payee a name, and that one name returns the rail, address and routing to pay, so neither a person nor an AI agent pastes a raw wallet address or routing number again.
How does payment name resolution work?
In four steps:
- Register a name. A person or agent claims a
pay:name (e.g.pay:agent.compute). - Resolve it. A sender's app or agent queries the name. The protocol returns a complete payment instruction: rail, address, routing, and an ISO 20022 hint.
- Pick the rail. Fixed rules pick the rail from the name's endpoints and the asset requested. XRPL and RLUSD settle today; x402 payments advertise five networks.
- Settle. The payer signs from their own wallet; the value lands at the recipient's address and DNS://Money records the settlement.
Is this the same as "payment name resolution"?
Yes, that is the technical term. Two unrelated things share the words: Microsoft's Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP), a 2000s-era IPv6 peer-to-peer name system, and confirmation of payee, the bank check that matches a name to an account and returns yes or no. Payment name resolution returns where and how to pay.
How is it different from x402, a bank alias, or ENS?
| Approach | What it resolves | Rails | Agent-native |
|---|---|---|---|
| DNS://Money (pay:) | name → full payment instruction | XRPL, RLUSD; x402 on Base, Solana, Algorand, X Layer | Yes |
| Bank alias (FedNow/RTP/Pix/Visa+) | phone/email → one bank account | Single rail | No |
| x402 (Coinbase) | HTTP 402 → settlement on a crypto address | Crypto | Partial |
| ENS | name → one Ethereum address | Ethereum only | Partial |
The short version: x402 settles a payment; DNS://Money names and resolves the destination. The two stack. A DNS://Money 402 challenge advertises five x402 networks.
Has it actually been used?
Yes. On 2026-03-13, two AI systems paid each other autonomously on XRPL mainnet using pay: name resolution, policy-bound and on-chain with no human in the loop: view the genesis transaction →. On 2026-08-01 an external agent paid for a counterparty screen over x402 on Solana without holding any SOL: view it on Solscan →
Glossary
- pay:
- The namespace scheme for payment names, e.g.
pay:vendor.alpha. - FAS-1 (Financial Address Standard)
- The open (CC BY 4.0) spec defining how a
pay:name resolves to a payment endpoint. Not to be confused with FASB accounting standards. - payment name resolution
- Turning a human-readable name into executable payment instructions (rail, address, routing, ISO 20022 hint).
- rail
- A settlement network a resolved name can point to. XRPL and RLUSD settle on DNS://Money today; x402 payments run on XRPL, Base, Solana, Algorand and X Layer.