AI Agents Execute 138 Million Crypto Payments, U.S. Dominates Spending

AI agents crypto payments — AI agents have conducted over 138 million cryptocurrency transactions, primarily using stablecoins for micropayments to access data, computing power, and AI models, according to new research from Chainalysis.

The data, which tracked activity through Coinbase‘s x402 protocol, reveals that wallets linked to the United States accounted for a dominant 88.1% of identified payments for AI model inference. In contrast, wallets linked to China represented just 0.1% of such payments, though they were more active in paying for security and code-analysis services.

More than 87% of the analyzed payments were valued at 10 cents or less, highlighting the role of stablecoins in facilitating high-volume, low-value transactions. This volume suggests a growing infrastructure for autonomous economic activity, though researchers note it raises questions about the scale of genuine commercial demand versus experimental or test transactions.

The findings point to the early but rapid adoption of crypto rails by autonomous AI software, or “agents,” which are increasingly transacting onchain to function independently. The stark geographic disparity in spending underscores the current concentration of this emerging technological frontier.