Coinbase bets everything on stablecoins becoming the backbone of AI-driven payments

Coinbase has decided that stablecoins are now the center of everything. The company is banking on these digital dollars to become the financial engine behind AI-powered apps, bots, and machines. And it’s already started pushing that future.

According to Bloomberg, the company hosted a hackathon in Brooklyn during a boiling-hot August weekend where around 100 developers from places like Malaysia and Italy coded tools that let software send and receive payments using stablecoins.

Developers built prototypes like a publishing platform that pays writers instantly, a chatbot that charges a few cents per answer, and a group-chat marketplace where users can buy and sell with each other, without ever touching traditional finance.

The event was all about building financial infrastructure for AI systems that will need to handle payments on their own; buying services, paying cloud fees, and making micro transactions automatically, around the clock.

Coinbase pushes x402 as AI’s payment backbone

Coinbase is trying to lead this charge with x402, an open-source protocol it named after a long-unused internet error code: “402 Payment Required.” It’s built for bots, apps, or any connected software to charge and settle instantly using stablecoins over the internet.

Whether it’s a couple of pennies for an AI tool or a few dollars for digital content, the goal is real-time payment without needing PayPal, Visa, or a bank wire.

Nemil Dalal, who runs the Coinbase Developer Platform, said this strategy goes straight back to what Brian Armstrong wrote in his “Secret Master Plan” almost a decade ago, a plan that started with speculation, moved to infrastructure, and ends with a fully open, global financial system.

“Like literally, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Nemil. “Now we’re in the app era. People are creating tons of different apps. And then we’re going to see a large amount of things come up from that.”

During the Brooklyn hackathon, developers were encouraged to use x402 in their projects. Ben Reilly’s team added it to a chatbot that could collect payments directly from users. “The killer app for crypto, that’s very obvious, is stablecoin payments,” said Ben.

His teammate, Alvaro Echevarria Cuesta, said the reason was simple: “Building your whole financial system on top of stablecoins gives you a lot more freedom than being bound by Stripe, PayPal, and all the restrictions they put in there.”

Coinbase is making a hard push to become the go-to toolkit for developers, the same way Amazon Web Services became the silent backbone of the internet. Their pitch is simple: forget casino coins, and start wiring software to make payments using tools that actually work at scale.

Congress clears the way as competitors close in

Coinbase isn’t alone, and the race is getting tight. Stripe acquired a company called Bridge that builds stablecoin infrastructure and is now working on its own blockchain. PayPal has already launched its own stablecoin, leaning on its huge user base to drive usage.

Meanwhile, Visa and Mastercard are still sitting on decades of built-in merchant systems, regulatory capital, and global reach. What’s pushing Coinbase to act fast is Washington.

Congress passed the first US law regulating stablecoins this summer. It forces issuers to hold reserves and gives developers a clear legal pathway to build on top of them. That legal clarity is already pulling more builders into the space.

Vishal Gupta, a former Coinbase and Circle executive who judged the hackathon, said it flatly: “Anytime you have clarity, it enables the next wave.”

Now Vishal is running a firm called True Markets that’s also backing stablecoin payment systems. His view? Crypto isn’t just trading anymore. It’s becoming something people can use. “We can actually use some of these native crypto rails in real consumer products and real B2B products,” he said.

Coinbase still makes most of its money from trading, which is volatile and competitive. The company also shares stablecoin revenue with Circle, which went public earlier this summer.

But none of this is guaranteed. Most people still rely on existing payment rails. AI is still unpredictable. Consumer habits change slowly. And the old financial systems have deep roots. Still, for that weekend in Brooklyn, the builders dreamt.

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