AI Agents Made 138 Million Crypto Payments on Base, Chainalysis Reports

More than 138 million transactions by AI agents have been recorded through the x402 protocol on Coinbase’s Base blockchain, per a new Chainalysis report on North America’s crypto economy.

The Machine Economy Goes Live

Chainalysis’ October 14 report "Inside North America’s $3 trillion crypto economy" shows AI agents buying data, paying for services, and purchasing AI model access — all settled in crypto. US-linked wallets accounted for 88.1% of geographically identified AI model inference payments vs 0.1% for Chinese-linked wallets.

Big Payments Backs the Standard

The x402 protocol has drawn backing from Visa, Mastercard and Stripe; Coinbase now lets business customers accept payments from AI agents. Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu estimates up to 100 billion AI agents could transact on the internet in coming years — in crypto.

Source: CoinDesk, Chainalysis