AI Agents Drive 138 Million Transactions on Base Blockchain, Chainalysis Reports

AI Agents Take Over Online Payments

AI agents are increasingly carrying out internet transactions on their own, and crypto is fueling the boom, according to a new report by blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis. Developers are giving AI agents their own budgets to buy the computing power, live web data, and code tools they need to complete tasks.

On Base, the Coinbase-incubated blockchain, cumulative transactions through the x402 protocol, which lets bots automatically pay for online services using crypto, rose from about 1,500 in mid-2025 to more than 138 million by the third quarter of 2026.

Small Payments, Fast Settlement

In practice, agentic commerce means providing an AI bot with an allowance. A developer funds the bot's wallet with stablecoins, typically Circle's dollar-pegged USDC, and the bot pays for services as it works without asking a person to approve each purchase. When it needs help with a task, it can pay for up-to-date information, ask a more capable AI model for assistance, or use an automated tool to check software code for security flaws.

More than 87% of these payments were for less than 10 cents, per the report. At those amounts, the fee for processing a credit card payment can cost more than the service itself, making blockchains an ideal alternative for bots buying services in small amounts, according to Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis.

Adoption Accelerates

The report shows that bots are putting funds to work sooner. The median time between a wallet receiving its first deposit and making its first payment fell from 73 days in late 2025 to 18 minutes by the third quarter of 2026. Roughly two-thirds of new wallets now spend within an hour of receiving funds.

Repeat funding has also become more common. Around 90% of qualifying active wallets received another deposit within 30 days, up from roughly 71% a year earlier, suggesting that developers are funding ongoing tasks rather than using them for one-off experiments.

Industry Backing Grows

Coinbase introduced x402 in May 2025 and later teamed up with cloud security firm Cloudflare to support its development. The protocol's foundation launched under the Linux Foundation in July with 40 members, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Google, extending its backing beyond the crypto industry.

Use cases have spanned online shopping, travel booking, and payments settlement, giving AI systems a bigger role in deciding what to buy and how to pay. Jardine expects the bot-driven economy to keep expanding as more online platforms accept payments from AI agents, describing the trend as likely exponential.

Sources: Fortune · Techmeme