AI Agents Settled $73 Million in Crypto Payments as Stablecoins Power New Digital Economy

Artificial intelligence agents are rapidly becoming part of the crypto economy, with a new report showing machine to machine payments have grown into a working ecosystem over the past year.

According to research released by crypto investment firm Keyrock in collaboration with Coinbase and blockchain platform Tempo, AI agents settled more than $73 million through 176 million transactions between May 2025 and April 2026.

AI Agents and Crypto Payments Create New Ecosystem

Researcher Ben Harvey said AI-powered payments have moved beyond experimentation and become a functioning ecosystem. The report found that more than 104,000 AI agents were registered across at least 15 directories and registries by the end of the first quarter of 2026.

The average transaction size stood at around 31 cents, showing how AI agents are increasingly handling small automated payments between machines.

Harvey argued that traditional payment systems are poorly suited for this type of activity. Fixed payment processing fees, often close to 30 cents per transaction, make low-cost transfers impractical for services such as API calls or small digital purchases.

Why Stablecoins Became the Default Payment Option

The report said stablecoins naturally became the preferred settlement layer because they can process sub-dollar payments more efficiently than traditional financial rails.

More than 98% of AI agent settlements were completed using USDC, making it the dominant stablecoin in the sector.

Risks of Heavy Dependence on USDC

Despite the growth, the report warned about overreliance on one stablecoin issuer. Harvey said depending heavily on USDC creates risks tied to reserve management, regulation, or technical problems.

He warned that if Circle faces regulatory pressure, downtime, or a de-pegging event, the growing AI payment economy could face serious disruption without a strong backup system in place.