This week, Coinbase revealed new features that could let AI agents carry out crypto transactions. Following suit, other developers also shared updates tied to AI-powered payments.
With many AI tokens ending the week in the green, will this be the tipping point for the growing narrative?
Agentic wallets for autonomous AI payments
Coinbase has unveiled Agentic Wallets, a new wallet infrastructure designed specifically for AI agents. The goal is to give AI systems the ability to hold, spend, earn and trade crypto on their own, without waiting for human approval at every step.
Today’s AI agents can advise on trades or identify services they need, but they cannot execute payments independently. With this project, the team says,
“The next generation of agents won’t just advise – they’ll act.”
Built on Coinbase’s infrastructure and powered by the x402 payments protocol (which has already processed over 50 million transactions) the system will reportedly enable machine-to-machine crypto payments. It will also help with gasless trading on Base, and programmable financial actions.
Developers can set session caps and transaction limits, while private keys stay secured within Coinbase’s infrastructure. Built-in compliance tools will also screen transactions automatically.
Here’s more!
Lightning Labs also announced a new set of tools that would help AI agents transact directly over the Bitcoin [BTC] Lightning Network.
Their update will include support for automatic L402 payments, node operations via MCP, remote key signing for added security, and scoped spending controls.
Meanwhile, activity on Ethereum [ETH] is heating up too.
In fact, over 13,000 AI agents registered on-chain in a single day following the launch of ERC-8004. That’s the new standard that gives agents portable identities and a built-in trust layer.
Tokens turn green as narrative catches steam
Several major AI tokens finished the week in positive territory, even if the top tokens dipped.
Kite [KITE] climbed by nearly 15% over the past seven days, while tokenbot [CLANKER] went up more than 15%. Siren [SIREN] gained over 12%, and Unibase [UB] rose by more than 9% weekly.
Now, some tokens remain down on shorter time frames. However, the broader trend did imply that investors could be stepping in early for what could become the next major growth story.
Final Thoughts
- Coinbase’s Agentic Wallets and Lightning’s AI payment tools will help the AI-crypto story this year.
- With 13,000 AI agents registering on Ethereum in a single day, the economy may already be taking shape!
