Big Tech backs protocols that let AI programs spend money autonomously

Big tech companies are backing a new group that aims to set standards for how AI systems handle payments, both in crypto and in traditional currencies.

The Linux Foundation announced Thursday it’s launching the x402 Foundation to oversee the x402 protocol. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services have already signed on.

Coinbase helped develop the protocol before handing it over to the foundation. Several major financial players joined early. American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, Circle, Solana Foundation, and Polygon Labs all threw their support behind it.

Other backers include Cloudflare, Shopify, Thirdweb, and KakaoPay.

Coinbase says moving the protocol under the Linux Foundation creates a neutral home that’s not controlled by any single company. This setup might appeal more to tech firms and developers than keeping it under corporate ownership.

Protocol aims to enable autonomous AI payments

Jim Zemlin, who leads the Linux Foundation, made the case by pointing to how “the internet was built on open protocols.” He’s arguing for taking the same approach with AI payments.

What does the x402 protocol actually do? It lets AI agents and web services process payments independently. Think paying for API access, buying data, or getting digital services – all without needing someone to click approve each time.

The idea is picking up steam as more people predict that machine-to-machine transactions will dominate crypto payments.

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, recently said that AI agents making online transactions will outnumber humans pretty soon. Over at Circle, Jeremy Allaire has predicted that billions of AI agents could be running on blockchain networks within three to five years.

Actual use of the x402 protocol hasn’t matched the hype

Data from Dune Analytics shows a spike late last year followed by a sharp drop.

Transactions peaked at around 13.7 million during the week of November 4-10, with another 13.66 million the following week. Since then? Activity fell off a cliff. Weekly volumes in 2026 have ranged from about 29,000 to 1.1 million. That’s a huge gap and shows adoption has been spotty despite all the major backing.

Meanwhile, Stripe partnered with Tempo, a blockchain startup, to launch their own version on Wednesday. They’re calling it the Machine Payments Protocol.

Matt Huang, who cofounded Tempo and runs Paradigm, put it this way: “Agentic payments is very early, and we still are figuring out the best way to structure these. So our team just came up with what we thought was the most elegant, minimal, efficient protocol that anyone can extend without our permission.”

Tempo raised $500 million in 2025 at a $5 billion valuation. Investors included Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital.

Visa developed the part of Stripe and Tempo’s protocol that handles credit and debit card payments for agents. Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, described it as creating a clear protocol for how agents talk to merchants.

Visa’s also testing an experimental command-line tool in beta. It lets software fire off payments directly from a terminal without developers needing to juggle API keys.

Last month, Mastercard announced plans to acquire BVNK, a London-based stablecoin infrastructure company, for up to $1.8 billion. The deal includes $300 million in payments contingent on hitting performance benchmarks. It’s expected to close sometime this year.

Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief product officer, said: “We expect that most financial institutions and fintechs will, in time, provide digital currency services.”

BVNK, founded in 2021, had a valuation above $750 million, according to CNBC last year. The platform supports transactions across all major blockchain networks in over 130 countries.

CZ predicts a million-fold increase in AI payments

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao weighed in on March 9, posting that AI agents will process one million times more payments than humans, and they’ll use crypto to do it.

Zhao’s post came out the same day as Brian Armstrong’s similar point. Armstrong mentioned Coinbase’s Agentic Wallets, which went live in February 2026 on the x402 protocol.

AI agents will make 1 million times more payments than humans, and they will use crypto. https://t.co/PkhsAuZPst

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) March 9, 2026

BNB Chain, Binance’s blockchain network, rolled out infrastructure for autonomous agent payments on February 4, 2026. The ERC-8004 standard creates verifiable blockchain identities for AI agents. BAP-578 brought in Non-Fungible Agents, essentially software that exists as a blockchain asset with its own wallet and can spend funds to complete tasks without needing approval for every transaction.

A day after talking about AI payments, Zhao posted about the tools he’s been using. After testing different AI models with OpenClaw, an open-source autonomous agent framework, he said Kimi AI performed best. He found it most efficient with tokens, effective for coding work, and easiest to get running.

Kimi AI is built by Moonshot AI, a Chinese artificial intelligence company founded in 2023. OpenClaw is an open-source project for deploying autonomous agents locally without cloud services. OpenAI acquired the project earlier in 2026.

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