A new phase may begin for $XRP as autonomous software shifts from purchasing digital assets to performing real commercial tasks. Chandler Fong, co-founder of the startup t54, which develops trusted AI agents, discussed this potential transition on the X platform on August 21, describing an agent economy consisting of markets with different payment values, transaction frequencies, and settlement requirements.
Before becoming co-founder of t54, Fong served as head of product at Ripple, and prior to that, worked in quantitative finance and blockchain at J.P. Morgan. Since then, Ripple has supported his company, joining Franklin Templeton in a $5 million seed funding round.
Machine-to-machine settlements are no longer an open question, as agents have already conducted over a million transactions on the $XRP Ledger without human involvement.
Fang noted that the next question is how this activity will evolve into broader commercial activity, including applications that select XRPL in the background. He wrote:
"This changes our perspective on XRPL adoption."
Spending Requirements May Redefine the Order of Agent Payouts
The first phase of commercial adoption focuses on digital products that agents can find, acquire, and use within automated workflows. Ripple's XRPL AI Starter Kit, released on June 10, already supports x402 payments using $XRP or Ripple USD ($RLUSD), enabling autonomous software to pay for application programming interfaces, computing resources, model inference, and other online services.
The next stage will grant agents limited spending authority, while obligating them to adhere to budgets, vendor restrictions, and approval rules set by users. Mastercard's "Agent Pay for Machines" program extends this model to invoices, computing power, and other automated transactions that companies want to process without requiring human approval for each one.
The card network launched the program on June 10 with over 30 partners, including Coinbase, Stripe, and Solana Foundation. Ripple joined the program through RippleX, integrating cryptocurrency settlement rails and traditional payment systems into a single infrastructure for automated corporate procurement.
Consumers and businesses will require cryptocurrency wallets alongside financial instruments that define what an agent can purchase, how much it can spend, and which decisions require human approval. Merchants, in turn, will need to provide pricing, inventory information, delivery terms, and payment interfaces in formats understandable by autonomous systems.
Agents that build a reliable history of identification, transactions, and debt repayment will eventually be able to obtain financial capacity or credit instead of pre-funding for each task, Fang said.
The Use of $XRP Will Depend on Settlement Needs
Expanding agent activity will not require every search, policy check, or price comparison to become an XRPL transaction. For recurring payments between the same parties, XRPL payment channels can be used, allowing participants to exchange signed claims in $XRP off-chain before settling their aggregate obligations via an on-chain ledger transaction.
According to Fang, the three adoption phases create different volumes of load: frequent small-value payments for digital services, fewer but larger-value transactions for consumer and business commerce, and thousands of internal actions preceding one settlement for embedded agents. Platforms could aggregate activity or settle net obligations instead of recording every step on-chain, he added.
The payment asset will vary depending on the purpose of each transaction and settlement requirements. $XRP can handle direct payments, routing, or final settlement, while $RLUSD can provide dollar-denominated value for specific purchases. Existing analysis describes $XRP and $RLUSD as performing complementary functions within XRPL, rather than competing to process every transaction.
XRPL Adoption May Become Invisible
In the long term, adoption could lead to agents being integrated into treasury platforms, logistics systems, and financial applications, without users needing to directly interact with XRPL. Software will be able to compare suppliers, assess risks, and choose blockchain infrastructure in the background.
According to Fang, system interoperability represents a greater challenge than moving assets between blockchains, as transactions may increasingly begin within card, banking, or institutional systems and then link to blockchain-based settlements.
Fang explained:
"Long-term adoption does not require every person to open an XRPL wallet or consciously choose a blockchain before performing a task."
Therefore, transaction volume alone will provide an incomplete picture of agent adoption levels. More informative metrics will be recurring activity, merchant revenue, spending compliance, successful delivery, and efficient dispute resolution. The t54 co-founder concluded: "By that time, XRPL won't just be evaluated on whether agents can use it. It will be evaluated on how much useful economic activity they choose to conduct through it."
Fang noted that from an industry perspective, progress will still appear gradual, comparing this picture to the emergence of ChatGPT, where years of infrastructure work only became noticeable after the product reached a broad audience. He predicted that people will stop wondering what constitutes an agent transaction and will simply expect agents to operate within their limits, adding that adoption shows which load XRPL needs to scale next.
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