Vying for the AI Payment Track: Traditional Card Networks Face Off Against Coinbase
As AI agents increasingly conduct commercial transactions, a battle for control over the underlying payment infrastructure is unfolding. The competition centers on two divergent and incompatible technical approaches for autonomous AI payments.
One camp, led by traditional card networks Visa and Mastercard, relies on tokenized card credentials within the established banking rails. Visa's "Intelligent Commerce" and Mastercard's "Agent Pay" services extend their existing tokenization technology to authorized AI agents for consumer retail transactions, leveraging decades of fraud protection and dispute resolution systems. Their partners include major AI firms like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Microsoft.
The opposing camp, spearheaded by Coinbase, advocates for an open internet protocol using stablecoins. Coinbase's x402 protocol utilizes the HTTP 402 status code to enable direct, machine-to-machine micropayments with USDC on-chain. This model eliminates card fees and is designed for high-frequency, low-value transactions between AI agents, such as paying for API calls or data streams, where traditional card costs are prohibitive.
Currently, application scenarios are clearly divided. Mainstream consumer-facing AI shopping services (e.g., ChatGPT's "one-click checkout," Amazon's AI-assisted shopping) predominantly use card channels due to their mature consumer protections and merchant networks. Conversely, the stablecoin channel dominates machine-to-machine payments, as seen in Amazon Bedrock's core payment service using Base blockchain.
Significantly, traditional card networks are not solely defending their turf; they are also investing in the stablecoin arena. Visa has rapidly expanded its stablecoin settlement volume and partnered with Coinbase on interoperability, while Mastercard moved to acquire stablecoin platform BVNK. This dual-strategy indicates their intent to become the fee-collecting gateway for all payment flows, regardless of the underlying rail.
The short-term outlook is for coexistence: cards for personal retail, stablecoins for machine transactions. The long-term outcome hinges on whether AI-driven commerce will resemble traditional retail or evolve into a vast network of machine micropayments. Visa and Mastercard's hedging strategy suggests they are prepared for either future, while companies betting on a single channel face greater risk.
Foresight News4m ago