Payments made by artificial intelligence agents have moved from theoretical concepts to reality over the last 12 months. According to a report by crypto-investment firm Keyrock, a total of 73 million USD was settled through 176 million transactions between May of last year and April of this year. This is reported by Cointelegraph.com reports .
Keyrock researcher Ben Harvey, in a report prepared in collaboration with Coinbase and the Tempo blockchain, noted that the machine-to-machine payment system is developing rapidly. Major market participants have allocated over 8 billion USD to acquire assets to solidify their position in this new payment stack. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicts that billions of AI agents will perform transactions via stablecoins on behalf of users over the next five years.
As of the end of the first quarter of this year, more than 104,000 AI agents have been registered in various registries. Interestingly, the average transaction size is only 31 cents. According to Harvey, traditional financial systems are not suitable for such micro-payments, as commission fees in systems like Visa can equal the transaction amount, making them economically inefficient.
AI agents are being used not only for payments but also for creating Web3 applications, launching tokens, and autonomous trading. A CoinGecko survey showed that 87% of crypto users are willing to entrust at least 10% of their portfolio management to artificial intelligence. This signals the beginning of a new era in the crypto economy.
However, there are certain risks in this system. More than 98% of settlements made by AI agents are conducted using Circle's USDC stablecoin. Experts call this a "single point of failure," as the entire ecosystem remains dependent on the technical infrastructure and regulatory standing of a single company.
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