Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Retweets BlackRock's Viewpoint and Writes: The Number of Agents Will Continue to Grow
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong retweeted BlackRock's viewpoint and wrote: the number of agents will continue to grow; the number of agents needing transactions will increase accordingly; cryptocurrencies and stablecoins will become their preferred payment rails. He simply replied, "Yep."
He previously stated that stablecoins are the best form of currency, with a rapidly growing second user group beyond humans—AI agents—and believes that stablecoins will become the default payment method for agents, with Coinbase building infrastructure for this. The x402 protocol allows agents to pay directly for APIs, data, and software; Coinbase for Agents allows trading within user-set limits. He observed that about 76% of agent business transactions are below $0.30, which is lower than the fixed minimum fee of about $0.30 for debit and credit cards, making one-cent payments unfeasible on card rails.
The company stated that in the second quarter, USDC accounted for over 99% of on-chain agent business, with Base processing over 90% of agent stablecoin transaction volume. The x402 has been delivered to the Linux Foundation, with participation from Google, Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services, etc.; public sites track such payments. BlackRock also believes that AI agents may become one of the main sources of demand for stablecoins.
In market mechanics, the buyer is the agent and API seller needing machine-to-machine micro-settlement, while the seller is the exchange issuing stablecoin rails and agent accounts. The event is driven by the narrative from BlackRock and the products from Coinbase, with funds flowing from human card payments to on-chain wallets with set limits; the beneficiaries are stablecoin issuance and settlement layers that can handle sub-dollar transactions, while the pressured party is the traditional card networks that impose minimum fees on micropayments.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Armstrong frames the growth of agents as a new account opening for stablecoins: humans can continue using cards, while machines cannot afford the minimum fees of cards. The x402 turns "accessing an API once" into a payable on-chain transaction, with Coinbase simultaneously selling rails, custodial edge agent wallets, and volume on Base. BlackRock's entry expands the demand side from crypto-native users to asset management narratives.
The capital path is to first use USDC to capture nearly all existing agent business, then concentrate transactions on Base, and finally hand over the protocol to the foundation for cloud vendors' access. Transaction size determines the rails: transactions below about $0.30 will have their profits swallowed by the fixed fees of card networks, and stablecoins must be priced based on on-chain costs to survive. If the agent economy is indeed larger than the human economy as he claims, the next table for exchanges will not be retail turnover but the reserves of machine accounts.
Similar structures include early PayPal capturing eBay's small transactions, Stripe capturing SaaS subscriptions, and Visa capturing cross-border cards: all first occupy a new transaction size, then redefine what constitutes default payment. Stablecoins are in the expansion phase from speculative exchange to machine settlement layer, with pricing power shifting from currency price fluctuations to whether micropayments can be settled.
Structurally, this belongs to technological substitution. The mechanism is that when economic entities shift from humans to agents, payments must be programmable, have set limits, and be completed unattended; card rails are designed for cardholders, while chain rails are designed for software accounts. Whoever becomes the default wallet for agents first will collect the tolls of the machine economy.
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The rise in the number of agents primarily elevates the number of accounts needing settlement.
Transactions below the minimum card fee will seek another rail.
Machines do not pay out of faith, but with stablecoin balances that can be automatically deducted.