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Keyrock Report: 76% of AI Agent Transactions Fall Below Visa’s $0.30 Fee Floor
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A new report from Keyrock, a global crypto investment group leading in market making, asset management, OTC, and options trading for digital assets, finds that artificial intelligence (AI) agents have settled more than $73 million across approximately 176 million transactions since May 2025, while four competing payment architectures have taken shape, backed by some of the largest companies in technology.
Key facts
- A USDC transfer on Base costs approximately $0.0001, which is roughly 0.03 percent of a $0.31 payment
- Three major frameworks reach enforcement within weeks of each other: MiCA’s transitional period ends July 1, 2026, the GENIUS Act’s implementation deadline falls July 18, and the EU AI Act’s
- American Express moved first to address this commercially, launching Agent Purchase Protection on April 14, 2026, covering erroneous purchases made by verified agents within its registered ecosystem
- Of the 176 million payments recorded, 98.6 percent settled in USDC
Summary
Keyrock’s May 2026 report found AI agents settled $73M across 176M transactions in 12 months, with 98.6% in USDC. Coinbase and Stripe each span 5 of 6 payment stack layers, while incumbents deployed over $8B in acquisitions. MiCA, the GENIUS Act, and the EU AI Act all hit enforcement by August 2, 2026, with none covering machine-to-machine payments. The report, co-published with Coinbase, Tempo, and Virtuals, documents how machine-to-machine payments moved from a theoretical concept to a functioning ecosystem in one year.