Chainalysis Report Shows AI Agents Completing 138 Million Crypto Payments
Autonomous AI agents are quietly handling an enormous volume of cryptocurrency transactions for online services.
A new report from Chainalysis shows that autonomous AI agents have made more than 138 million cryptocurrency payments through x402, the Coinbase-incubated protocol that lets software pay for online services automatically.
Most of these payments were tiny in size, pointing to widespread use for small, automated microtransactions.
“Indeed, the vast majority of x402 activity registered as a micropayment in the 16 months ending in September 2026 (we extended our review period given how new this technology is). Over 87% of payments fall between a hundredth of a cent and a dime, with the most common size between one and ten cents.”
The x402 protocol supports these payments by letting AI agents make transactions independently, without human input each time.
Chainalysis adds that users of x402 are becoming more intentional in how they use the protocol. This is evident in the shrinking time between a wallet’s initial funding and its first x402 payment.
“In late 2025 (when the protocol was still new), wallets were, at the median, 73 days old when they initiated an x402 payment; by Q3 2026 that gap had dropped to 18 minutes. This temporal compression shows that these newer wallets are being purpose-built to engage in agentic commerce and to spend on x402.”
The firm also notes that AI agents are using the protocol to pay for a wide array of services.
“We’ve tracked millions of transactions flowing from AI wallets into information-focused services like code review, financial intelligence, and data and search API. This tracks with what we know about agents in general: they’re hungry for machine-readable data. It’s an area where on-chain micro-payments can be especially useful, as we discussed earlier.
AI agents are also paying through payment rails, for gaming, token issuance and gambling services, and for agent frameworks and agentic tooling. Notably, the AI agents are also paying for AI agents. One of the largest categories for x402 transactions is model inference.”
Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram
Don't Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any assets including cryptocurrencies, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Generated Image: Midjourney
The post Chainalysis Report Shows AI Agents Completing 138 Million Crypto Payments appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
