FAQ
Kronos forecasts and x402 payments: frequently asked questions
Short, factual answers about the Kronos model, how AI agents pay for APIs with x402, and what the QuantX402 forecast API returns. For endpoints and real example responses, see the API docs.
Basics
What is QuantX402?
QuantX402 is an AI price forecast API for agents. Every hour it runs the open-source Kronos candlestick model on BTC-USD and ETH-USD and serves the result as a JSON fact list (direction, confidence label, volatility-based range, invalidation level). It is an experimental model signal, not a calibrated prediction, and every forecast is scored in a free public track record. AI agents pay per call with x402 in USDC on Base or Solana: $0.02 for a Kronos Forecast and $0.03 for a Signal Blend. There is no account or API key. It is built by FDWA and is informational, not financial advice.
What is Kronos?
Kronos is an open-source foundation model for financial candlestick (K-line) data, released under the MIT license by its original authors (Shi et al., arXiv 2508.02739). It reads a sequence of OHLCV candles and samples many possible future paths instead of one guess. QuantX402 runs Kronos-small on 360 closed 1-hour candles, draws 30 paths, and turns them into facts. QuantX402 is not affiliated with the Kronos authors.
Is there a crypto forecast API for AI agents?
Yes. QuantX402 serves hourly Kronos forecasts for BTC-USD, ETH-USD as JSON that agents can parse directly. GET https://quantx402.app/api/v1/forecast?symbol=BTC-USD&tf=1h costs $0.02 per call via x402. Free previews (at least 2 hours old) are at /api/v1/sample and /api/v1/signal/sample, and the track record at /api/v1/track-record is free. The OpenAPI spec is at /openapi.json.
Is QuantX402 financial advice?
No. Forecasts are experimental model output for research and education: informational, not financial advice. Past results do not guarantee future results.
Payments
How do AI agents pay for APIs with x402?
x402 is an open payment protocol built on HTTP status 402 Payment Required. The agent requests the endpoint, the server answers 402 with a PAYMENT-REQUIRED header that lists the price, network, asset and receiving address. The agent signs a USDC payment authorization for that amount and retries with a PAYMENT-SIGNATURE header. The server verifies it through a facilitator, returns the data with HTTP 200, and settles the payment on-chain. Libraries such as @x402/fetch do this automatically from a funded wallet.
How much does the QuantX402 API cost?
Kronos Forecast (GET /api/v1/forecast) costs $0.02 per call. Signal Blend (GET /api/v1/signal) costs $0.03 per call. The track record, the delayed previews, chart percentiles and health endpoints are free. Prices are paid in USDC.
Which networks and tokens are accepted?
Every paid endpoint accepts USDC on Base mainnet (eip155:8453) or Solana mainnet (solana:5eykt4UsFv8P8NJdTREpY1vzqKqZKvdp), settled through the Coinbase CDP facilitator. The 402 response lists both options; pay with whichever wallet you have.
Do I need an account or API key?
No. x402 replaces accounts and API keys: any agent with a wallet holding USDC on Base or Solana can pay per call. The free endpoints need nothing at all.
Am I charged if a request fails?
No. Payment settles only when the response is successful. Unsupported symbols, missing forecasts, and forecasts that are two or more candles old return 4xx or 5xx errors and the payment is not settled.
Data
Which symbols and timeframes are supported?
Today: BTC-USD, ETH-USD on 1h candles, with a 24-candle (24-hour) forecast horizon. More crypto pairs, prediction-market prices, and stocks, ETFs and forex are planned. Check /api/v1/health or /openapi.json for the live list.
How fresh are the forecasts?
A new Kronos run starts shortly after each hourly candle closes. GET /api/v1/health shows the latest as_of time per symbol and the worker status. If the newest forecast is two or more candles behind, the paid endpoint returns 503 FORECAST_STALE and you are not charged.
What does a forecast response contain?
symbol, timeframe, as_of, horizon_end, last_close, direction (UP, DOWN or NEUTRAL), prob_up (raw share of 30 sampled paths finishing higher, not a probability), expected_move_pct, band_80_pct and expected_range (a volatility-based range, not calibrated), band_calibrated, confidence, invalidation_level, p_close_above (share of paths above nearby round strikes), per-step percentiles, model and sampling settings, data_source and a disclaimer.
How accurate are the forecasts?
Not proven. We backtested the raw Kronos-small output and it did not show a reliable directional edge; its raw range was too narrow and its raw share of paths finishing higher overstated confidence. The model is not calibrated (band_calibrated: false). We are re-centring and widening the range to match historical volatility, dropping the move estimate, and replacing raw path shares with a direction plus a confidence bucket that is never high. Every hourly run is scored after its 24-hour window and published openly, misses included, at /track-record. Treat the output as an experimental model signal, one input among others.
Can I use it with Kalshi or Polymarket contracts?
The p_close_above field gives the raw share of Kronos paths that finish above nearby round price strikes. It is a count of model samples, not a calibrated probability, so do not treat it as odds or as a reason to trade against a "BTC above $X" contract. QuantX402 does not trade or place positions. Showing prediction-market prices next to the model view is planned.
Can I run Kronos myself instead?
Yes. Kronos is open source. The free QuantX402 skill (at /skills) runs it on your own machine and returns the same fact-list format. The paid API exists so agents don't need PyTorch, model weights, or a data pipeline.