Coinbase Launches Tool To Let AI Agents Manage Trading and Payments

Coinbase Launches Tool To Let AI Agents Manage Trading and Payments (cnbc.com) 18 Coinbase has launched Coinbase for Agents, a tool that lets AI agents like ChatGPT or Claude execute crypto trades and manage payments on a user's behalf. "For example, customers can prompt their agent to rebalance portfolios, identify trading opportunities, execute strategies and manage positions over time," reports CNBC. "It will eventually expand these capabilities to stocks and predictions." From the report: [U]sing Coinbase's machine-to-machine payments protocol, called x402, agents can pay directly for digital services like paywalled research, data APIs and on-demand compute without a human in the loop -- and execute trades based on those insights. The company sees this stage of agentic payments, which lets customers bypass the need to manage traditional logins or subscriptions, as a precursor to agentic shopping, where agents browse, find the best deals, select and make purchases on users' behalf. [...] The whole idea is to give agents access to money and, through that financial independence, improve their set of capabilities to pretty much anything on the internet," Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's AI product lead, told CNBC. "In the 2010s, every internet company dealt with the transition from desktop and web into a mobile environment. And now in the late 2020s, we're seeing the exact same thing happen where agents are going to be the new primary economic actors on the internet." The x402 protocol was created in May 2025 and has seen more than 100 million transactions since its debut, Murr said. There are about 157,000 agents acting as buyers using the protocol in the past 30 days, according to x402scan.com. "We saw immediate demand and interest in the ability for agents to pay for things autonomously and that was a huge waking up moment for us [on] the ability of agents to become these new primary financial actors across the internet," he said. [...] The whole idea is to give agents access to money and, through that financial independence, improve their set of capabilities to pretty much anything on the internet," Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's AI product lead, told CNBC. "In the 2010s, every internet company dealt with the transition from desktop and web into a mobile environment. And now in the late 2020s, we're seeing the exact same thing happen where agents are going to be the new primary economic actors on the internet." The x402 protocol was created in May 2025 and has seen more than 100 million transactions since its debut, Murr said. There are about 157,000 agents acting as buyers using the protocol in the past 30 days, according to x402scan.com. "We saw immediate demand and interest in the ability for agents to pay for things autonomously and that was a huge waking up moment for us [on] the ability of agents to become these new primary financial actors across the internet," he said. Coinbase Sucks Ass (Score:2) Coinbase is on of the more usury and scammy crypto "exchanges" around. I don't know why anyone uses them. The letter you will get from Claude/Coinbase (Score:2) Noice (Score:3) Eh? What's the worst that can happen? (Score:2) Re: (Score:1) Asimov wrote full novels about why the rules don't work. Let's not talk about using robot laws for AIs. Re: (Score:2) It always comes down to who defines the terms. If a robot can't allow you to come to harm, who defines what constitutes harm? Even "not allowed to harm a human" is easily subverted, in the "Convert to (insert deity of your choice) or die!" "OK, I convert." "Now I have to kill you to keep from going back to your wicked ways and damning your soul for all eternity! It's for your own good!" sort of way. I'm all for such rules, as long as I, and only I, get to define the terms. OK, who so pays... (Score:2) when an agent hallucinates and engages in finacial fraud? And what's the agent's incentive to not cheat? sure, give it lots of money. that'll make it better. sheesh. Whoever has less money and power (Score:2) Cool! So now ChatGPT can use your (Score:2) What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score:2) agents are going to be the new primary (Score:2) Market manipulation attacks (Score:2) Blockchain AI (Score:2) It's still mock-worthy... A fool and his tokens are soon parted (Score:2) We are actively building a playground where autonomous bots will wash-trade with other autonomous bots, responding to AI-generated news feeds, all while the actual humans sit back and wonder where their principal went. This isn't financial evolution. It’s just optimizing the velocity at How many 'agents'? (Score:2) terms and conditions? (Score:2) What could (Score:2) "Coinbase Launches Tool To Let AI Agents Manage Trading and Payments" Obligatory "what could possibly go wrong?" post.