Coinbase has launched crypto wallet infrastructure that allows AI agents — programs that can think and transact without human input — to spend, earn and trade crypto.
In a post on Wednesday, Coinbase programmers Erik Reppel and Josh Nickerson said the new Agentic Wallets feature aims to build on today’s agents, which can answer questions, summarize documents, and assist with tasks, but can’t execute trades or orders on behalf of users.
“The next generation of agents won’t just advise — they’ll act,” the pair said, adding that AI agents will be able to do everything from monitoring decentralized finance positions and rebalancing portfolios to paying for compute and API access and participating in creator economies.
Reppel and Nickerson said Agentic Wallets build on Coinbase’s AgentKit framework, introduced in November 2024, which enabled developers to embed wallets into agents.
The agents can transact via Coinbase’s x402, a purpose-built payments protocol for autonomous AI use cases that has already reportedly seen 50 million transactions.
Through x402, “Agents acquire API keys, purchase compute, access premium data streams, and pay for storage – all autonomously, creating truly self-sustaining machine economies,” the programmers said.
Reppel and Nickerson said agents would be able to operate on the Ethereum layer-2 network Base, “Managing positions and executing strategies wherever the opportunities exist.”
“Build agents that monitor yields across protocols, execute trades on Base and manage liquidity positions 24/7. Your agent detects a better yield opportunity at 3am? It rebalances automatically, no approval needed because you’ve already set permissions and controls.”
AI agents now operable on the Bitcoin Lightning Network
Lightning Labs, the team behind the Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning Network, also released a new toolset on Wednesday that enables AI agents to transact on Lightning using the L402 protocol standard.
The AI agents can also run a Lightning node and manage a Lightning wallet containing native Bitcoin (BTC) without access to the private keys.
Meanwhile, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek launched ai.com on Monday, a platform that lets users create personal AI agents to perform everyday tasks on their behalf.
Marszalek said the AI agents can perform anything from managing emails and scheduling meetings to canceling subscriptions, carrying out shopping tasks and planning trips.
Crypto leaders are bullish on agentic AI
Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of stablecoin issuer Circle, predicted on Jan. 22 that billions of AI agents will be transacting with crypto and stablecoins for everyday payments on behalf of users in three to five years.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has shared a similar view, stating that “native currency for AI agents is going to be crypto” and will do everything from buying tickets to paying restaurant bills.
Related: Deel taps MoonPay to roll out stablecoin salary payouts in UK, EU
Outside of crypto, tech giant Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol on Jan. 11 to power agentic commerce.
Google’s protocol uses its Agent Payment Protocol 2 to facilitate transfers on behalf of users, with Google Pay serving as the default payment handler for US dollar transactions.
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