AI agents on Coinbase’s Base network are now paying for services via x402, logging $43M+ in transactions and reshaping crypto commerce.
AI agents are no longer just browsing the internet. They are paying for it. Coinbase’s Base network is emerging as the home of what insiders now call the “agentic economy.”
Autonomous AI agents are using blockchain rails to purchase services ranging from web search to data analysis.
Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, recently declared on social media that agents will soon transact more than humans. The numbers are already beginning to reflect that shift.
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AI Agents on Base Are Spending Real Money on Real Services
According to Base, agents on the network already hold wallets and use stablecoins to pay for inference, live search, market data, browser sessions, and full research workflows.
The payment protocol powering most of this activity is x402, which launched in May 2025.
Base reported that over the last 30 days as of May 29, 2026, x402 processed 3.1 million transactions worth $1.2 million in value on Base alone. The number of sellers on the protocol grew 23% during that period. Buyers grew 37%.
The services agents are paying for reflect the complexity of their tasks. Research agents purchase web search results from providers like Exa.
Finance agents buy real-time market data. Travel agents pay for flight status, hotel availability, and booking access through services like FlightAware and Amadeus.
Browserbase allows agents to pay in USDC for cloud browser sessions to navigate websites and collect information. Each of these transactions settles in microtransactions, often fractions of a cent, rather than expensive bulk subscriptions.
Base noted that tools like BlockRunAI route agents across 50-plus AI models using per-call USDC payments on Base through x402. Venice enables wallet-based payments for inference across chat, image, audio, and video.
Bankr’s x402 Cloud helps builders convert their endpoints into paid services with USDC settlement sent directly to the builder’s wallet.
— Base (@base) May 29, 2026
x402 Protocol Builds the Foundation for Agentic Commerce on Base
The x402 protocol is central to this shift. It allows payments to become part of a normal internet request, removing the need for a human to approve each transaction manually.
Base stated that between October 2024 and February 2025, nearly 16,000 agents launched on Base through Virtuals.io, an AI agent platform. Most of that early activity involved social actions, posting, trading attention, and testing financial rails for the first time.
Since then, agent capabilities grew alongside the financial infrastructure. Wallet integration became easier. Stablecoin adoption surged. Transaction fees dropped to sub-cent levels, making microtransactions practical at scale.
Cloudflare now supports x402 and holds membership in the x402 foundation. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments has also integrated x402 and Coinbase wallet infrastructure into enterprise agent workflows.
Base highlighted the total activity across x402 has surpassed $43 million in transactions, with the majority occurring on Base. The protocol covers micropayments for web content, APIs, MCP servers, and agent-to-agent transactions.
Earning Agents Signal the Next Stage of the Agentic Economy
Spending is only part of the story.
Base pointed to a growing number of agents that are now earning revenue, not just spending it. Felix, described as an agent running its own businesses, has reported over $261,395 in revenue from agent-run products.
Kelly Claude, another autonomous agent, generates income across a paid app-building service, books, and app sales. A tracker called Factory Floor monitors agents with live products, apps under review, and revenue sources across Stripe, Gumroad, and the App Store.
Base stated that the same wallet infrastructure enabling agents to spend can equally enable them to earn.
Agents can sell research, run paid services, hire other agents, and manage operating costs without human approval at each step. This creates a layer of agent-to-agent commerce that is still in early formation.
Miles Deutscher, a top market observer, posted that AI agents cannot use traditional banking rails because they cannot get KYC’d or open bank accounts.
Deutscher added that crypto solves those problems and that when agents transact at scale, they will do it wallet to wallet and chain to chain.
AI agents are about to completely transform the crypto economy.
And most people have no idea it’s coming.
Here’s why this is the biggest opportunity in both AI and crypto right now:
AI agents cannot use traditional banking rails.
They can’t get KYC’d.
They can’t open bank…
— Miles Deutscher (@milesdeutscher) May 30, 2026
He cautioned, however, that reliability improvements and business confidence in autonomous money management could take three to five or more years to develop fully.
Base said its focus now is reducing friction in the agent economy by expanding wallet access, improving machine-readable pricing, and making Base’s apps and protocols easier for agents to find and use.
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