The shift to machine-to-machine payments is picking up pace. A new report from Keyrock reveals that AI agents settled more than $73 million across 176 million transactions on blockchain rails between May 2025 and April 2026.
While that figure is tiny compared to Visa's $14.5 trillion annual volume, the report argues the real story is how quickly the infrastructure stack is forming. Coinbase, Stripe, Google, and Visa have all launched competing systems for agentic payments.
Coinbase's x402 protocol lets AI agents pay directly with USDC for services like blockchain analytics without needing an account. Stripe's Machine Payments Protocol and Google's AP2 system are also in the race. Visa has extended its card network with tokenized credentials for AI-driven commerce.
Crypto rails are winning for a simple reason: cost. Over 76% of agent transactions fall below the 30-cent fixed fee common with card payments. Most range between one and 10 cents, making traditional rails impractical. Settlement on blockchains like Base and Tempo costs fractions of a cent.
Currently, 98.6% of machine payments settle in USDC, solidifying Circle's role but also raising concentration risk.
Regulation remains a wildcard. MiCA in Europe, the U.S. GENIUS Act, and the EU AI Act take effect around mid-2026, but none directly address autonomous machine transactions, identity, or liability.
Gartner projects AI agents could intermediate $15 trillion in purchases by 2028. McKinsey sees $3 to $5 trillion in retail agentic commerce by 2030.