AI Agents to Outpace Humans in Crypto Transactions: Coinbase CEO

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes that AI agents will eventually do more daily transactions than all humans combined. In a recent post on X, he argued that crypto and AI are not competing technologies, but rather complementary ones.

Armstrong's core argument is that AI agents cannot use traditional banking due to the need for human approval at every step. He believes that blockchains and stablecoins offer fast, programmable, and global settlement, making them practical tools for machine-to-machine payments.

Coinbase is already building products using x402, Base, and USDC to support this model, which Armstrong coined 'Agentic Finance' or 'AiFi.' The company has launched Coinbase for Agents, a tool that connects AI systems to user accounts through a command-line interface, allowing agents to trade, monitor markets, and rebalance portfolios within set limits.

While some researchers have raised security concerns about x402 systems, with one paper finding rule violations in every system tested, Coinbase has addressed these issues. Regulators are also taking notice, with the Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden stating that current rules do not account for autonomous agents.