Cloudflare · AI Agent · Circle · Coinbase · CoinDesk
Users can approve each purchase with a passkey or let an agent spend within preset limits
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★ Tier-1 Source
MoonPay says no single agent or compromised system holds everything needed to move the money.
Key facts
- Coinbase said earlier in the year that x402 had processed more than 165 million payments worth a combined $50 million
- In dollar terms, disclosed activity remains small. x402 moved about $24 million over 30 days in July, roughly what Visa handles in one minute
- Lincoln Murr, Coinbase’s head of AI product, told CoinDesk he estimates about 99% of those payments use USDC
- In February, DBS and Visa demonstrated an agent purchasing food and drink with DBS/POSB credit and debit cards
Summary
AI agents are emerging as a new class of customers, making autonomous payments for things like data, computing power and online tools. Stablecoins, particularly USDC, have taken an early lead in small, high-frequency machine-to-machine payments, while card networks remain better suited to larger purchases requiring credit, refunds and dispute protections. Coinbase, Cloudflare, MoonPay, Visa and Mastercard are developing systems that let agents spend within preset limits, but adoption remains nascent, and questions about security, funding and liability are unresolved. For years, companies like Coinbase and Solana Labs have ruminated about how to onboard the next billion users into crypto. Those users may soon arrive, but not in the form executives once expected.