Keyrock's report reveals cryptocurrencies are becoming the primary payment method for AI agents, with significant transaction growth projected.
Keyrock has released a report illustrating the rise of cryptocurrency payments as the preferred method for AI agents, particularly for microtransactions that traditional card payment systems struggle to handle.
Between May 2025 and April 2026, AI agents executed over 176 million on-chain transactions worth more than $73 million, predominantly using USDC for nearly all transactions.
The report emphasizes the growing need for AI agents to make payments autonomously for services like data, computing power, APIs, and content. For instance, a trading agent can automatically pay small fees to access market data and cloud services.
Keyrock has identified four main architectures facilitating these payments:
- x402 by Coinbase;
- Machine Payments Protocol co-developed by Stripe and Tempo;
- Agent Payments Protocol from Google;
- Visa's infrastructure tailored for AI commerce.
The firm asserts that these solutions are pioneering a new payment framework, with Coinbase and Stripe already addressing five out of the six necessary layers.
Investment in the infrastructure for agent transactions has exceeded $8 billion, further accelerated by the recent preview of AWS Bedrock AgentCore Payments, which lists Coinbase and Stripe as its initial partners.
Industry analysts predict that by 2028, AI agents will facilitate purchases totaling $15 trillion, while McKinsey projects the retail agent commerce market will reach between $3 trillion and $5 trillion by 2030.
Additionally, the Solana Foundation, in partnership with Google Cloud, launched an AI agent payment system called Pay.sh in May.
