The Micropay team, one of five finalists and a winner of the built award at the Hackathon. Image source: @polkadotapac on x
[Zurich, Switzerland – October 6th, 2025] – The merger of AI and Blockchain reached a new milestone at a 36-hour hackathon at token2049, Asia’s leading crypto conference. Among the event’s standout projects, Micropay, a system that enables cross-chain micropayments for AI agents using Hyperbridge, a Polkadot-based rollup, was named a category winner for its innovative use of Hyperbridge, a Polkadot-based rollup. Hyperbridge uses new technology to address the security and interoperability challenges of traditional bridges, which have collectively lost more than $2.8 billion to hacks.
This win highlights a critical role cross-chain bridges play toward a truly autonomous, agentic internet where machines can transact and collaborate without human supervision.
The rise of agentic economies where AI agents autonomously pay for APIs, data, or services is already underway, thanks to foundational work by protocols like Coinbase’s X402. However, one major hurdle remains: cross-chain compatibility. Imagine an AI agent (the client) with funds on the base that needs to pay an API provider (the server) that only accepts Ethereum. Current systems require a manual bridging process that is slow, expensive and reflects the friction of international bank transfers. Without a seamless solution, agentic payments remain impractical, stifling the growth of AI-Blockchain integration.
Micropay solves this by integrating modifications of X402 with hyperbridge, a coprocessor of the polkadot interoperability. Hyperbridge enables secure, on-chain verification of cross-chain messages using advanced consensus proofs such as Beefy and ZK-Light clients. This unique architecture allows developers to request and send messages to disconnect chains as if they were local, while at the same time avoiding the vulnerabilities of legacy bridges. By spreading validation across Polkadot’s core parachain security, Hyperbridge achieves full node security, up to $3 billion, without compromising speed or cost.
In a live demonstration, the micropay system validated Hyperbridge’s efficiency. The micropayment process starts with the AI agent creating an initial micropayment on its native chain (e.g. Base Sepolia) using the X-402 standard. To offset high bridging costs and delays, Micropay automatically batches multiple micropayments in larger volumes for settlement. Hyperbridge then converts the EVM tokens from the client’s chain to the server’s preferred chain (e.g. Ethereum Sepolia). This critical step includes secure verification of state transition chains. Funds are bridged at the server’s address, allowing instant, low-cost data access for the agent.
Hyperbridge was the ideal choice for this technology because of the way the application can query other chains as they are next door yet with high economic security. It currently supports more than 12 EVM chains such as base, ethereum, optimism, polygon and others. The architecture enables efficient data exchange, asset tokenization and cross-chain payments without centralized intermediaries. For AI agents, this translates to short-breeding, cheap responses. This is a crucial factor for real-time interactions in autonomous economies.
Micropay’s win underlines Hyperbridge’s critical role in enabling a verifiable, multichain future. The protocol is the brainchild of Polytope Labs co-founders Seun Lanlege and David Salami, former engineers from the Ethereum and Polkadot ecosystems. They designed hyperbridge as an interoperability coprocessor that loads complex computations off-chain, bringing only cryptographically secure proofs back on-chain for verification.
This revolutionary design is powered by the Interoperable State Machine Protocol (ISMP), which acts as an HTTPS-like API for secure cross-chain requests. This allows Hyperbridge to inherit Polkadot’s pooled economic security and provide the highest security guarantees available. The platform has also received significant validation, with $5.6 million in seed funding, led by the Polkadot Ecosystem Fund and with support from investors such as Web3 Foundation and Scytale Digital.
Recent milestones have quickly cemented its industrial position. The platform is already connected to more than 14 chains, including polygon, ethereum, optimism, arbitrageum, basis and BNB chain. Additionally, Hyperbridge, now Polkadot’s native bridge, has played a key role in the Polkadot Defi Singularity Initiative that deepens the footprint of DOT, Polkadot’s native token.
As blockchain ecosystems mature, solutions like Micropay demonstrate how robust interoperability protocols can drive adoption. Hyperbridge’s continued expansion positions it as a key infrastructure for verifiable cross-chain activity. This technology is poised to enable various applications in defi, gaming, and data markets, where agents need to pay for APIs, compute, or oracles without human supervision.
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About Hyperbridge
Hyperbridge is the world’s safest bridge; It replaces multisigs and MPC solutions, which are at the center of the biggest bridge hacks, with secure cryptographic (consensus & storage) proofs. It is already connected to more than 14 chains, including Ethereum, Base, BNB chain, etc. It enables mission-critical cross-chain user experiences that do not have the luxury of centralized security models, such as stableCoins and other RWA issuers, DAOS and cross-chain governance.
About Polkadot
Polkadot is the powerful, secure core of Web3, providing a shared foundation that unites some of the world’s most transformative apps and blockchains. Polkadot offers advanced modular architecture that allows developers to easily design and build their own specialized blockchain projects, pooled security that ensures the same high standard of secure block production across all connected chains and apps connected to it, and robust governance that has a transparent system everyone has said in shaping the blockchain ecosystem for growth and sustainability. With Polkadot, users are not just participants, they are co-creators with the power to shape the future.