Mastercard Opens Early Access to AI Agent Payments After Pilots With Coinbase, Base and Cloudflare

Mastercard is giving developers early access to Agent Pay for Machines, including its first buyer and seller side APIs, a developer toolkit and a sandbox. The move follows end to end pilots with Cloudflare, Ant International, BVNK, AIsa, Base and Coinbase. The product was first announced in June with support for spending controls and payments by card, bank account and stablecoin. It remains in a pilot stage and is not yet commercially available, and developers are being asked to test the APIs and say what features they want added.

Demo at Cloudflare Connect Shows Nine Payments

In the demonstration, marketing agency Hype asked an AI agent to prepare a campaign for a protein bar launch. The agent bought social media research from AIsa and eight campaign images from Cloudflare AI Gateway, all within a budget Hype had approved. Nine payments went to the two providers.

How x402 and Crypto Rails Power the Payments

The agent paid using the Coinbase incubated x402 protocol, which takes its name from the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” code. When a merchant asked for payment, it returned a 402 response and checked the agent’s signed payment voucher before delivering the service. Mastercard said vouchers can be batched and redeemed later instead of settling each payment on its own. Coinbase Developer Platform supplied the wallet infrastructure, and Base served as the onchain settlement network.

Role of BVNK and Mastercard’s Payment Platform

BVNK, which Mastercard acquired in August, acted as the agent wallet and used Mastercard’s Global Money Platform to process payments and settlement in fiat or stablecoins. Sellers can be paid in their preferred currency, token or rail. Mastercard said AI agents now need a way to pay for services, and that is what it is building.