Agentic Payments – The One Thing Every Crypto Firm is Racing to Build

Even amid red charts, crypto companies are continuously building out products and rolling out new features. But what is something that almost every crypto firm seem to be building right now?

Well a new race is quietly taking shape across the crypto industry. While much of the market conversation still revolves around ETFs, tokenization, and institutional adoption, many of the biggest firms in Web3 are increasingly focused on a different frontier: payments designed for AI agents.

Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, recently summed up the opportunity in a post on X. He argued that the most compelling aspect of agentic payments isn’t the technology itself but the fact that the potential market remains undefined.

Zak informed that developers at WLFI are “building USD1 infrastructure for it today.”

Crypto Firms Betting Big on Agentic Payments

At its core, agentic payments refer to financial systems where autonomous software agents can hold, send, and manage money. In practice, this could mean an AI agent paying for APIs, negotiating subscriptions, purchasing compute power, or even executing micro-transactions across digital marketplaces.

The idea is gaining traction among leading crypto firms and builders experimenting with stablecoin infrastructure.

Dan Romero, co-founder of decentralized social network Farcaster, who recently departed has now revealed that he is developing a project centered on proxy payments and stablecoins. In a X post, he wrote, “We’re working on a new thing related to agentic payments and stablecoins.”

https://x.com/dwr/status/2029229078289760576

The initiative is tied to Tempo, a stablecoin-focused blockchain backed by Stripe and crypto investment firm Paradigm.

Also Read: NYSE Parent ICE Invests in OKX

Stripe Building Payment Rails for AI

One of the clearest signals of this shift is also coming from payments giant Stripe, which has increasingly leaned into crypto and stablecoin infrastructure.

Stripe has been experimenting with tools that allow AI agents to initiate payments directly through APIs. As its Crypto Produt Lead Jennifer Le shared, it is working to enable software to automatically pay for digital services such as data access, compute resources, or API calls. Instead of traditional checkout systems, these payments can be triggered programmatically whenever a service is used.

The idea is to transform the internet into a pay-per-use network, where autonomous agents can transact instantly as they interact with services.

Also Read: Is Your Crypto Exchange Ready for the IRS’ New 1099-DA Tax Rules?

Circle Preparing USDC for the Agent Economy

Stablecoin issuer Circle is also positioning its infrastructure for this emerging ecosystem.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire recently highlighted how USDC-enabled payment gateways could power AI agents capable of holding and spending digital dollars autonomously. According to Allaire, the rapid development of tools for agent payments reinforces the idea that the “agentic economy” may naturally run on stablecoins and blockchain rails.

Startups are already experimenting with such infrastructure. One example is Sponge Wallet, a project supported by Y Combinator, which aims to provide programmable wallets designed specifically for AI agents to manage and spend funds.

Coinbase Building Wallet Infrastructure for Autonomous Agents

Crypto exchanges are also exploring how agents might interact with financial systems.

Coinbase has been developing infrastructure that enables AI agents to operate their own crypto wallets, allowing them to store assets, interact with decentralized applications, and execute transactions automatically.

These programmable wallets can include security controls such as spending limits, transaction permissions, and policy-based rules, ensuring that agents operate within boundaries defined by users.

The model effectively turns AI systems into independent economic actors capable of interacting with blockchain networks.

Polygon Enabling Micro-Transactions for AI Services

Infrastructure networks are also adapting to support the emerging machine economy.

Developers at Polygon Labs are also exploring payment frameworks that allow AI systems and applications to conduct micro-transactions using blockchain infrastructure. The idea is to make it possible for services to charge small amounts sometimes fractions of a dollar for each interaction or request.

Such systems could enable scenarios where AI agents automatically pay for compute resources, premium data feeds, or access to digital services.

Because blockchain networks allow programmable payments and near-instant settlement, developers believe they are particularly suited for the high-frequency, low-value transactions that autonomous agents may require.

The Growing Crypto*AI Race

And this list is not exhaustive – firms like Tether, Binance, etc are also experimenting with the same.

But despite the growing momentum, agentic payments are still in their early stages. Most of the projects being built today remain experimental, and real-world applications are only beginning to emerge.

Yet the convergence of AI and crypto is already pushing companies to rethink the role of payments on the internet. The opportunity is already sizable. As of mid-2026, the global agentic AI market is estimated at roughly $11 billion, growing rapidly from around $7 billion in 2025. AI-driven commerce could reach $1.7 trillion globally by 2030, making it one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital economy.

According to American Banker, even though only <1% of enterprise software currently uses agentic AI, this adoption is expected to rise to 33% by 2028.

And across the crypto industry, companies appear to be preparing for exactly that future. Because if machines are going to work for us, sooner or later, they will also need a way to pay.