Coinbase has launched a crypto wallet infrastructure that allows AI agents (programs that can think and trade without human input) to spend, earn, and trade cryptocurrencies.
Coinbase programmers Eric Lepel and Josh Nickerson said in a post Wednesday that the new agent wallet feature is intended to build on today’s agents, who can answer questions, summarize documents, and assist with tasks, but cannot execute trades or orders on a user’s behalf.
“The next generation of agents will not only advise, they will act,” they said, adding that AI agents will be able to do everything from monitoring decentralized financial positions and rebalancing portfolios to paying for compute and API access and participating in the creator economy.
sauce: Coinbase Developer Platform
Lepel and Nickerson said the Agenttic wallet is built on Coinbase’s AgentKit framework, introduced in November 2024, which allows developers to embed wallets into agents.
Agents can trade through x402 on Coinbase. x402 is a payment protocol dedicated to autonomous AI use cases, with a reported 50 million transactions already.
Through x402, “agents obtain API keys, purchase compute, access premium data streams, and pay for storage, all autonomously, creating a truly self-sustaining machine economy,” the programmers said.
Lepel and Nickerson said agents operate on Ethereum’s Layer 2 network base and can “manage positions and execute strategies wherever the opportunity presents itself.”
“We build an agent that monitors yield across the protocol, executes trades on Base, and manages liquidity positions 24/7. Does the agent detect a better yield opportunity at 3 a.m.? Automatically rebalances. No approval required because we’ve already set up permissions and controls.”
AI agents can now operate on the Bitcoin Lightning Network
Lightning Labs, the team behind the Bitcoin Layer 2 Lightning Network, also released a new toolset on Wednesday that allows AI agents to transact on Lightning using the L402 protocol standard.
AI agents can also run Lightning nodes and manage Lightning wallets containing native Bitcoin (BTC) without accessing private keys.
sauce: lightning lab
Meanwhile, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek launched ai.com on Monday. It is a platform that allows users to create personal AI agents to perform daily tasks on their behalf.
Marszalek said AI agents can do everything from managing emails and scheduling meetings to canceling subscriptions, performing shopping tasks and planning trips.
Crypto leaders are bullish on agent AI
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of stablecoin issuer Circle, predicted on January 22 that billions of AI agents will be trading cryptocurrencies and stablecoins on behalf of users for daily payments within three to five years.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao echoed this sentiment, saying that “the native currency of AI agents will be cryptocurrencies,” and that they will do everything from buying tickets to paying for restaurants.
Related: Deal expands stablecoin payroll payments in UK and EU with MoonPay
Outside of cryptocurrencies, tech giant Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol on January 11 to power agent commerce.
Google’s protocol facilitates money transfers on your behalf using Agent Payments Protocol 2, with Google Pay acting as the default payment handler for USD transactions.
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