High gas costs present a significant challenge for x402. The financial logic falls apart if an agent must pay a $0.05 network fee for a data query that only costs $0.0001. To solve this issue, The Graph leveraged GraphTally, its specialized micropayment system. This solution relies on cryptographically signed vouchers that are eventually settled onchain in batches.

This method allows agents to perform thousands of queries per minute, removing the barrier of gas fees for every individual microtransaction. This innovation also helped shape the x402 specification, ensuring it remains practical for blockchain environments. Ultimately, agents can now utilize x402 to pay for Subgraph queries, effectively turning The Graph into a data marketplace designed for the agent economy.