{"id":95165,"date":"2026-03-12T15:51:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=95165"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:55:17","slug":"bloombergs-ai-agent-transaction-volumes-overestimated-by-fifteenfold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bloombergs-ai-agent-transaction-volumes-overestimated-by-fifteenfold\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloomberg&#8217;s AI Agent Transaction Volumes Overestimated by Fifteenfold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg&#8217;s data on payments made by AI agents has been called into question. This was stated by Noah Levine, a partner at the venture firm a16z.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JveAtr9p4f\">https:\/\/t.co\/JveAtr9p4f<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Noah Levine (@nlevine19) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nlevine19\/status\/2031761011275956587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 11, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Earlier, the agency <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-03-07\/stablecoin-firms-bet-big-on-ai-agent-payments-that-barely-exist\">reported<\/a> that from February 5 to March 7, 2026, automated systems conducted transactions worth $24 million. The authors of the article cited statistics from the platform <a href=\"http:\/\/x402.org\">x402.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Levine presented alternative calculations from Allium Labs, which estimated the on-chain turnover at around $3 million for the same period. The actual figure could be even lower.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An analyst from Artemis, known as OnchainLu, developed a filter to identify fictitious transactions, where wallets trade with themselves or transfer funds between addresses. After applying this filter, the figure dropped to $1.6 million.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"628\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347-1024x628.png\" alt=\"image\" class=\"wp-image-276678\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347-1024x628.png 1024w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347-300x184.png 300w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347-768x471.png 768w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347-1536x942.png 1536w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-385efbbd7db2eb02-8536054810721347.png 1726w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/artemis\/status\/2031768320081277029\">X\/Artemis<\/a>.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;The gap clearly shows how early even the measurement system itself is,&#8221; noted the a16z partner.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Betting on the Future<\/h2>\n<p>Despite modest current figures, Levine considers the infrastructure around AI agent payments to be highly promising.<\/p>\n<p>He recalled that Coinbase developed the x402 standard, and Stripe, Cloudflare, and Vercel have already introduced their integrations. Google has also launched its own payment protocol for agents.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;None of them are betting on the current $1.6 million per month. They are counting on what this figure will be when agents become default buyers,&#8221; concluded Levine.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Do Digital Assistants Buy?<\/h2>\n<p>According to the a16z partner, the main activity of agents is focused on developer tools. Firecrawl sells <span data-descr=\"an automated process of collecting and extracting data from websites using special bots\" class=\"old_tooltip\">web scraping<\/span> for $0.01 per operation, Browserbase offers browser sessions, and Freepik provides image generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of them accept regular cards, but through <span data-descr=\"an open internet-native payment protocol built on the HTTP 402 status code\" class=\"old_tooltip\">x402<\/span>, a user or agent can pay for one-time access without a subscription or registration\u2014just from a wallet.<\/p>\n<p>However, the <span data-descr=\"pay-per-query\" class=\"old_tooltip\">&#8220;pay-per-query&#8221;<\/span> model is gradually moving beyond development, Levine emphasized. For example, the StableEnrich product aggregates data from Google Maps and other sources through a single x402 interface. Sales departments are already using the tool to gather client information.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Coinbase <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/coinbase-unveils-wallet-infrastructure-for-ai-agents\">launched<\/a> Agentic Wallets. The tool allows digital assistants to autonomously store funds, make payments, trade tokens, and interact with DeFi protocols.<\/p>\n<p>In the same month, Binance&#8217;s founder <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/cz-foresees-an-era-of-ai-agents-in-the-crypto-industry\">predicted<\/a> the advent of the AI agent era. According to him, every person will have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of assistants making payments in cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg&#8217;s data on payments made by AI agents has been called into question. This was stated by Noah Levine, a partner at the venture firm a16z.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Bloomberg's data on AI agent payments is disputed by a16z's Noah Levine.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1531,1751,1198,2382],"class_list":["post-95165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-a16z-crypto","tag-ai-agents","tag-crypto-payments","tag-x402"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"172","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Bloomberg's data on AI agent payments is disputed by a16z's Noah Levine.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95167,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95165\/revisions\/95167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}