AI Agents Make 138M Crypto Payments via x402 Protocol

Artificial intelligence agents have recorded more than 138 million transactions through Coinbase's x402 protocol, using cryptocurrency to buy data, computing power, and access to AI models, according to new research from Chainalysis. The findings were published in a report titled Inside North America's $3 trillion crypto economy: Agentic commerce accelerates.

The United States dominates this emerging market, with U.S.-linked wallets accounting for 88.1% of geographically identified payments for AI model inference, compared with 0.1% for Chinese-linked wallets. Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis, told CoinDesk that Chinese developers may be more inclined to use open-weight models such as DeepSeek and Qwen, reducing their need to purchase metered inference services.

Micropayments and Stablecoins

More than 87% of analyzed x402 payments were worth between one-hundredth of a cent and 10 cents. These amounts remain too small to process economically through traditional credit card networks, highlighting the utility of stablecoins for automated micropayments.

In July, the x402 protocol processed approximately 75 million payments worth $24 million over 30 days. Major payments infrastructure providers including Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe have backed the x402 protocol, while Coinbase has begun allowing business customers to accept payments from AI agents.

Regional Differences in Spending

While U.S. wallets lead in model inference, Chinese-linked wallets demonstrated a different pattern. They accounted for roughly 90% of geographically identified payments for security and code-analysis services, directed largely toward platforms such as AgentLisa, an AI-powered smart contract auditing platform.

Chainalysis researchers noted that while transaction counts are growing, volume alone does not fully establish the extent of genuine commercial demand versus automated activity on the network.

Key facts

• AI agents executed more than 138 million transactions using the x402 protocol on Coinbase's Base blockchain.
• U.S.-linked wallets accounted for 88.1% of identified payments for AI model inference.
• Over 87% of analyzed x402 payments were valued at 10 cents or less.
• Chinese-linked wallets accounted for about 90% of identified payments for security and code-analysis services.