Author: Zennon Kapron
Compiler: Chopper, Foresight News
As AI agents increasingly undertake various commercial transactions, a battle for the underlying payment infrastructure is already underway.
Currently, the technical approach for enabling AI agents to autonomously consume diverges into two largely incompatible solutions: the channel through which the settlement and clearing of a transaction is ultimately completed when a software program acts as the payer. One camp constructs payment links based on tokenized bank card credentials controlled by Visa and Mastercard; the other, led by Coinbase, uses stablecoins to complete settlement based on open internet protocols. While the surface-level focus of AI agent commerce is shopping assistant applications, the core struggle behind it is actually about who will dominate the next-generation payment system.
Two Major Payment Channels, Suited for Different Application Scenarios
The traditional card networks moved first and acted swiftly. Mastercard launched its Agent Pay service in April 2025, built on its proprietary agent tokenization system. This tokenization technology was originally designed for contactless payments and card-on-file fast payment scenarios but has now been expanded to allow verified AI agents to complete transactions on behalf of users within authorized limits.
At launch, the service assembled a group of industry partners, signaling a clear strategic intent: collaborators included Microsoft, IBM's watsonx orchestration platform, and payment service providers Braintree and Checkout.com. A day later, Visa introduced its Visa Intelligent Commerce service, opening its payment network to AI developers, with AI-enabled bank cards as the core vehicle. This solution replaces the original card number with a tokenized credential to prove user authorization for a specific AI agent and define transaction boundaries. Visa also enlisted several top AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity, Mistral, and Samsung.
The solutions from both card networks keep transactions within the decades-old bank card payment model. AI agents are new actors, but behind them runs the same traditional payment channel that has served global commerce for half a century.
The stablecoin camp adopted an architecturally distinct solution. In May 2025, Coinbase launched the x402 protocol, reviving the long-dormant HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code to enable direct settlement of transactions over the internet using the USDC stablecoin. The specific process is: a client requests access to a resource, the server returns a payment instruction; the client attaches signed stablecoin payment information to the request header; once the on-chain transaction is confirmed, the corresponding resource can be accessed normally. The entire process requires no account registration, card linking, and does not incur bank card transaction fees.
This solution is designed for machine-to-machine transactions. AI agents may need to complete thousands of micro-payments for API calls, data stream acquisition, or connecting with other agents. Such transactions are entirely unfeasible on traditional bank card channels from a cost perspective.
The two technical routes each have their strengths. The bank card channel excels in personal retail consumption scenarios, which place high demands on chargeback mechanisms, fraud protection, and dispute arbitration. The stablecoin channel demonstrates significant advantages in high-frequency, small-value, cross-border machine transactions, where traditional bank card fee structures and settlement timescales break down completely. The core of the contest lies in which type of scenario will become the mainstream for AI agent commercial transactions.
A major challenge facing both routes is identity verification. When a software program initiates a payment, merchants need to confirm that the operator is a legitimate agent authorized by a real user, not a malicious bot using stolen credentials. Simultaneously, users need a mechanism to request the reversal of a transaction mistakenly initiated by an AI agent.
Visa stated that AI traffic on US retail websites surged 47-fold, prompting it to collaborate with cloud service provider Cloudflare to launch a Trusted Agent Protocol for distinguishing legitimate AI programs from malicious crawlers. This highlights a structural advantage of traditional card networks: fifty years of accumulated risk scoring systems, chargeback rules, and dispute resolution mechanisms are well-suited to handle issues like an AI agent buying the wrong product. Stablecoin transactions, once on-chain, are permanent and irreversible, a problem for which no native solution currently exists within that system.
In the future, the key to winning the consumer-facing market may not be which payment channel has lower fees, but rather who can solve the challenges of agent identity verification and transaction dispute resolution.
Card Networks Hedge Their Bets, Covering Both Tracks
A telling signal is that Visa and Mastercard are not putting all their eggs in their own channel's basket; they are simultaneously investing in the stablecoin track.
As of April 2026, Visa's stablecoin settlement business reached an annualized transaction volume of $7 billion, a 50% increase quarter-over-quarter; the company added support for 5 new public blockchains, bringing the total number of partnered chains to 9, while also implementing over 130 "stablecoin + bank card" linkage projects in more than 50 countries. In October 2025, Visa doubled down by jointly launching the Trusted Agent Protocol with Cloudflare to help merchants distinguish legitimate agents from malicious programs, and publicly announced collaboration with Coinbase to promote interoperability between its network and the x402 protocol. Seemingly competing systems—the bank card system and stablecoin protocols—are now building bridges.
Mastercard has adopted a similar dual-track strategy. In March 2026, Mastercard announced its intent to acquire stablecoin platform BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. Prior to this, its Agent Pay service had already expanded to Latin America and the Caribbean, with adaptation completed for local card issuers in early 2026.
The core strategy of the two traditional card networks is evident: no longer simply defending the bank card channel, but striving to become the toll gate for all payment flows, whether through their own channels or stablecoin channels. This strategic move strongly indicates their judgment: if the industry ultimately settles on bank cards as the mainstream for AI payments, they would not need to invest heavily in acquiring stablecoin-related infrastructure.
Diverging Implementation Scenarios
Judging from currently launched products, the application boundaries of the two technical routes are quite clear.
Most mainstream products targeting ordinary consumers opt for the bank card channel. The "Checkout with ChatGPT" feature launched in September 2025, co-developed by OpenAI and payment service provider Stripe, relies on shared payment tokens to complete bank card clearing. These tokens are limited to specific merchants and shopping orders. It initially connected with Etsy sellers and later expanded to cover over a million Shopify stores. Amazon's "Buy for Me" feature, which calls upon AI agents to make purchases on third-party websites, automatically populates the user's linked bank card for settlement.
Personal consumption-oriented AI shopping services generally choose bank cards due to the system's mature anti-fraud tools, extensive merchant network, and long-established user trust.
Meanwhile, the stablecoin channel firmly occupies the machine transaction market. Amazon integrated the x402 protocol into its Bedrock agent core payment service, using Coinbase's Base public blockchain for settlement, with a single transaction taking about 200 milliseconds and fees under one cent; Stripe also joined the service as a payment integrator. According to Coinbase data, in its first year, the x402 protocol processed over 169 million payment orders, involving 590,000 buyers and 100,000 sellers.
These transactions are not typical user purchases like clothing; they are payments by AI agents for services like computing power, data, and API calls, where transaction frequency and individual amounts are incompatible with the logic of bank card design. In September 2025, Coinbase, together with Cloudflare, spearheaded the establishment of the x402 Foundation, aiming to promote industry-wide development of a universal standard rather than building a closed, proprietary product.
Summarizing five landmark AI commercial payment projects implemented by early 2026: 3 use bank card settlement, 2 use stablecoin settlement, with application scenarios largely divided along the lines of personal consumption and machine transactions.
Industry Outlook
In the short term, the industry landscape in 2026 is likely to maintain the status quo: bank cards dominate personal retail payments, stablecoins specialize in machine-to-machine transactions, with both coexisting and developing. However, by 2030, this situation may change, as both camps are vigorously competing for the converging zone between the two types of scenarios.
The ultimate deciding factor will depend on whether AI-driven commercial transactions ultimately lean more towards traditional retail forms or evolve into a massive network of micro machine transactions. If the former, traditional card networks will remain dominant; if the latter, the stablecoin channel will capture a large volume of entirely new transaction flows.
Visa and Mastercard have made the safest bet: hedging by investing in both tracks, ensuring they can collect fees regardless of where future transaction flows go. Those who need to be truly wary are companies betting solely on a single payment channel. The two major card networks have already mitigated this risk, a clear reflection of their assessment of the industry's future.
