COINDESK · 2026-10-14 15:35 UTC

AI agents make 138 million crypto payments as U.S. dominates spending on AI models

AI agents have made 138 million crypto payments through the x402 protocol on Coinbase's Base blockchain, with U.S.-linked wallets accounting for 88.1% of identified payments for AI model inference. Over 87% of x402 payments were worth between one-hundredth of a cent and 10 cents, with July 2026 processing roughly 75 million payments worth $24 million. Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase have backed the x402 protocol; stablecoins are seen as well-suited for AI agent transactions due to their ability to handle sub-cent amounts.

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