US-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) Creates a new ecosystem that combines stablecoin-based micropayments with AI.
Building on release earlier this year of the X402, an open source payment protocol that enables immediate stablecoin payments on any site, Coinbase Engineers has added a discovery layer for AI agents, something like a “Google for Agents”, which the company calls the X402 Bazaar.
This matters because it is about unlocking new paradigms in agent trade, a term often associated with people who set demands and preferences for AI agents to shop after them.
In fact, the marketplace for things that AI agents will buy is actually significantly larger than the things that people may want to buy, says Erik Reppel, head of engineering at Coinbase Developer platform. He used the term “pay-per-crawl” to describe the problem that was solved.
“Think of it as paying bricklayers to scrapers,” Reppel said in an interview. “So the X402 is a good standard for situations where an AI agent needs access to data or content access to make more informed, better decisions.”
Imagine an agent that draws the latest market data, commissioning a design from an AI art model or subscribing to a live data for sports or finance, Coinbase said in a blog about the X402 bizarre.
Some of the first projects listed include Prixe, a stock exchange rate that allows agents to create up-to-date financial reports and various photo and video cleaning end points.
As more services are added, the possibilities of autonomous workflows will only expand, Reppel said.
“Really all digital goods or any digital piece of media can be paid for with X 402,” he said.
