Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has rejected the idea that artificial intelligence will replace crypto, arguing instead that “agentic” AI — software systems capable of initiating actions — will increase the need for programmable, crypto-based payments. In a post on X, Armstrong described AI agents as a new category of economic participants that will require payment rails and settlement mechanisms beyond those offered by traditional banking systems.

Armstrong pointed to Coinbase’s Base network, the USDC stablecoin, and the company’s x402 payment protocol as core infrastructure for autonomous machine-to-machine payments. His remarks come amid growing industry attention on blockchain networks as a potential payments layer for AI agents, including reporting that agentic payment activity on Base surpassed 100 million transactions in June.

Armstrong’s argument: AI does not replace crypto

Armstrong’s position centers on incentives and infrastructure. Rather than viewing AI as a competing technology to blockchain, he argues that AI’s broader “megatrend” effect will expand demand for financial services that software can trigger automatically and execute reliably.

On X, Armstrong connected that view to agentic finance, or AiFi. The term refers to a model in which AI agents participate in the digital economy by initiating transactions and accessing services without direct human intervention. In such an environment, he suggested, payments must be programmable and usable by autonomous systems. He contrasted that requirement with conventional banking rails, which are typically built around accounts, checkout processes, and manual authorization.

Armstrong’s comments frame AI agents as software-based actors that may need to pay for services, data, APIs, compute resources, and other digital inputs. Under Coinbase’s framing, crypto infrastructure could provide the rails for those interactions because blockchains can support programmable transfers and onchain settlement. That matters for AI use cases because many of the resources agents may access, such as application programming interfaces or data feeds, are already delivered through software and can be priced in small, usage-based increments.

Coinbase’s AiFi stack: Base, x402 and USDC

Coinbase’s approach to agentic finance is built around three main components: Base as the underlying network, x402 as a payment protocol for autonomous software payments, and USDC as the dollar-pegged stablecoin used for settlement.

Base launched in 2023 as an Ethereum layer-2 network designed to make onchain applications faster and cheaper to use. Coinbase has positioned Base as general-purpose blockchain infrastructure rather than as a network created specifically for AI payments. Its role in the AiFi model is to provide scalable onchain execution for applications and payment flows while remaining connected to the broader Ethereum ecosystem.

Two years after Base launched, Coinbase introduced x402, a payment protocol built around the HTTP “402 Payment Required” standard. The 402 status code has long existed as part of the web’s payment-related design space, but it has not become a standard checkout mechanism for most internet services. Coinbase’s protocol is intended to enable automated stablecoin payments between software applications. In practical terms, x402 is designed to let agents and other autonomous systems pay for digital resources such as APIs or data without relying on traditional account-based checkout flows.

USDC, launched in 2018 by Circle and the Coinbase-backed Centre Consortium, is one of the assets used for x402 payments. Within the AiFi structure, USDC provides a stable-value settlement asset, while x402 standardizes how software applications request payment and complete transfers. Stablecoins are relevant to this design because they are blockchain-based tokens intended to track the value of traditional currencies, which can make them more practical for payments than more volatile crypto assets.

Together, Base, x402 and USDC are intended to make it easier for autonomous systems to interact economically onchain. Armstrong appears to view that architecture as increasingly important as AI agents become more active in commerce, data access and service provisioning.

Chainalysis reported 100 million x402-based transactions on Base

Beyond Coinbase’s stated vision, attention has shifted to whether “agentic payments” are appearing in measurable onchain transaction patterns. In a June report, Chainalysis said agentic payments on Base using x402 surpassed 100 million transactions within roughly nine months of tracked activity.

Chainalysis described its methodology as identifying x402-related payment flows onchain. The firm also said transactions worth at least $1 accounted for 95% of total value transferred. That finding indicated that most of the transferred economic value was not concentrated only in very small payments.

The blockchain analytics firm also reported behavioral differences between agentic participants and typical Base users. According to Chainalysis, wallets involved in agentic payments were generally newer, held more asset types, and maintained smaller average balances than Base users overall.

Cointelegraph asked Chainalysis for updated x402 activity figures and additional details about its tracking methodology. Chainalysis had not responded by publication time, leaving some measurement details unconfirmed, including how the methodology may evolve as activity scales. For readers assessing the reported activity, methodology is important because onchain data can show transfers between wallets and contracts, but classifying whether a transaction is truly agent-driven depends on how the relevant payment flows are identified.

Coinbase earnings timing adds business context

Armstrong’s comments come as Coinbase prepares to report second-quarter earnings on Thursday. According to consensus data compiled by Yahoo Finance, analysts expect Coinbase to report revenue of $1.29 billion. They also estimate that sales will fall 13.8% year over year, while earnings per share are projected to be flat.

The earnings outlook is separate from the AiFi debate, but it adds context to the timing of Armstrong’s push. For Coinbase, infrastructure narratives such as agentic finance may be viewed alongside broader onchain adoption and the potential expansion of stablecoin-based payments.

If agentic payment activity continues to grow, particularly through developer adoption and integrations involving stablecoin payments, Coinbase may treat the area as an additional growth lane. For now, a central question is whether agentic payment activity remains a measurable trend as usage moves beyond early x402 use cases.

Further updates from Chainalysis, more clarity on how “agentic” behavior is classified onchain, and evidence of sustained developer and payment integrations on Base will be important for assessing the development of Coinbase’s AiFi push.