Cryptocurrency payments are emerging as the settlement layer for AI agents, as the infrastructure of payment cards is ill-suited for microtransactions, according to a report by Keyrock.
From May 2025 to April 2026, AI agents conducted over 176 million on-chain transactions amounting to more than $73 million. Nearly all settlements were made in USDC.
The primary demand is for the payment of data, computing power, API, and content without human involvement. An example provided is a trading agent that automatically settles small amounts for market data and cloud infrastructure.
Keyrock identified four architectures for agent payments:
- x402 by Coinbase;
- Machine Payments Protocol by Stripe and Tempo;
- Agent Payments Protocol by Google;
- Visa’s card infrastructure for AI commerce.
The company believes these solutions form a new payment stack. Coinbase and Stripe already cover five out of its six layers.
Major players have directed over $8 billion towards deals and the development of agent transaction infrastructure. The segment received an additional boost following the launch of AWS Bedrock AgentCore Payments in preview mode. Coinbase and Stripe were the first partners of the service.
According to Gartner’s forecast, by 2028 AI agents could mediate purchases worth $15 trillion. McKinsey estimates the retail agent commerce market to be $3–5 trillion by 2030.
Earlier in May, Solana Foundation, in collaboration with Google Cloud, launched a payment system for AI agents — Pay.sh.