AI Crypto Payments Surge to 138 Million Transactions on Base

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are increasingly using cryptocurrency to purchase digital services, with more than 138 million transactions recorded through the x402 payment protocol on Coinbase’s Base blockchain, according to a new Chainalysis report.

The report, titled Inside North America's $3 Trillion Crypto Economy: Agentic Commerce Accelerates, highlights the rapid expansion of AI-powered crypto payments, particularly in the United States.

Chainalysis found that U.S.-linked wallets represented 88.1% of geographically identified payments for AI model inference services, while Chinese-linked wallets accounted for just 0.1%.

Eric Jardine, Chainalysis' head of research, suggested that Chinese developers may rely more heavily on open-weight AI models such as DeepSeek and Qwen, reducing demand for paid inference services.

The growing adoption of AI agent payments comes as major financial companies, including Visa, Mastercard and Stripe, support the x402 protocol. Coinbase has also introduced capabilities allowing business customers to receive payments directly from autonomous AI agents.

Stablecoins are emerging as a preferred payment method because they enable extremely small transactions that traditional banking and credit card systems cannot process economically.

According to Chainalysis, more than 87% of analyzed x402 payments ranged from $0.0001 to $0.10, demonstrating the protocol's potential for AI-driven micropayments.

In July, x402 processed approximately 75 million transactions worth $24 million over 30 days, although researchers cautioned that some activity could be artificial rather than genuine commercial demand.

The report also identified improving wallet activity. Among wallets initially funded during the second quarter of 2026, 89.3% received additional funding within 30 days, compared with 70.6% for wallets funded in the third quarter of 2025.

Meanwhile, the average time between wallet funding and the first x402 payment declined from 73 days in late 2025 to just 18 minutes in the third quarter of 2026.

China displayed a different adoption pattern, accounting for approximately 90% of geographically identified payments for security and code-analysis services, particularly those involving AgentLisa, an AI-powered smart contract auditing platform.

Industry leaders expect AI agents to become major participants in the cryptocurrency economy. Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu has projected that as many as 100 billion AI agents could eventually conduct online transactions.

While payment volumes remain relatively modest, Chainalysis' findings indicate that AI agents and stablecoins could reshape digital commerce through automated blockchain transactions.