AI Agents Spending Money Online? New Research Says Not Really
Most payment volume on Coinbase’s x402 protocol isn’t coming from AI agents, according to blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs. TRM’s report, published Wednesday, examined $52.7 million across 198.9 million settlements processed by known x402 facilitators on Base, Solana, and Polygon since May 2025. After excluding self-payments and other anomalous flows, researchers estimated that just 0.6%–7.5% of the remaining commerce by value appeared to come from AI agents.