The agentic economy favors fast-settling blockchains like Aptos, Solana, and the BNB Chain, which can settle transactions in seconds, unlike traditional card networks that take days.

Industry leaders say AI agents will be the next major use case for blockchain and cryptocurrency, driving new demand for efficient protocols.

As AI agents transact autonomously, they will push demand for machine-to-machine micropayments and low-fee networks due to the drawbacks of high fees and slow settlements in conventional card rails.

Agentic AI is software that can shop, book, and pay autonomously with user permission, representing a shift from reactive chatbots to fully autonomous task execution.

McKinsey projects agentic commerce could generate $3 trillion to $5 trillion in annual value by 2030, illustrating the market potential for AI-enabled transactions.

The x402 payment protocol from Coinbase has seen notable uptake, with $15 million in adjusted volume across over 109 million adjusted transactions since its May 2025 launch, per Visa-Artemis data.

The x402 Foundation, in collaboration with Visa, Mastercard, and AWS, is building open payment rails to enable software-to-software AI payments over the internet.

Analysts cite Capgemini and Bain & Company as context for AI agents evolving from chatbots to autonomous systems, with industry tools from Coinbase and Google shaping the payments layer for agentic AI.

As AI agents transact, demand for native cryptos like Solana and Ethereum could grow due to use cases across data, compute, and API access payments.

Visa’s crypto arm and Tempo, backed by Stripe, launched AI tools in March enabling same-day payments by AI agents.

A joint Visa-Artemis report argues traditional card networks cannot support AI agents, which require near-zero fees and rapid settlement for viable micropayments.

Investors should focus on the underlying cryptocurrencies and altcoins issued by decentralized networks to capture value from the growth of agentic systems.