Coinbase Launches Tool To Let AI Agents Manage Trading and Payments (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0183753750
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/11/1849202/coinbase-launches-tool-to-let-ai-agents-manage-trading-and-payments
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/11/coinbase-launches-tool-to-let-ai-agents-manage-trading-and-payments.html
> [U]sing Coinbase's machine-to-machine payments protocol, [3]called x402 , agents can pay directly for digital services like paywalled research, data APIs and on-demand compute without a human in the loop -- and execute trades based on those insights. The company sees this stage of agentic payments, which lets customers bypass the need to manage traditional logins or subscriptions, as a precursor to agentic shopping, where agents browse, find the best deals, select and make purchases on users' behalf.
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> [...] The whole idea is to give agents access to money and, through that financial independence, improve their set of capabilities to pretty much anything on the internet," Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's AI product lead, told CNBC. "In the 2010s, every internet company dealt with the transition from desktop and web into a mobile environment. And now in the late 2020s, we're seeing the exact same thing happen where agents are going to be the new primary economic actors on the internet."
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> The x402 protocol was created in May 2025 and has seen more than 100 million transactions since its debut, Murr said. There are about 157,000 agents acting as buyers using the protocol in the past 30 days, according to x402scan.com. "We saw immediate demand and interest in the ability for agents to pay for things autonomously and that was a huge waking up moment for us [on] the ability of agents to become these new primary financial actors across the internet," he said.
[1] https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbase-for-agents
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/11/coinbase-launches-tool-to-let-ai-agents-manage-trading-and-payments.html
[3] https://www.coinbase.com/en-in/developer-platform/discover/launches/x402
Noice (Score:3)
So, ai agent places "prediction" that public figure A is dead, orders product from grocery store with hidden ingredient they are known to be allergic to and delivers to their house. This isn't Asimov, we built the bots without the three rules.
Eh? What's the worst that can happen? (Score:2)
No doubt. We've seen Claude try blackmail repeatedly in tests, why not give it a checkbook and greenlight it for managing your finances, eh? The worst it can do is first to spend all your money, all your saves, then use your identity to apply for a credit card (it has your financial info, probably your social, or it can buy that on Tor). After that maybe it'll run up the credit card to the limit then inform you that "Sorry, I've made some mistakes." like those agents that delete folks entire enterprise data
Re: (Score:1)
Asimov wrote full novels about why the rules don't work. Let's not talk about using robot laws for AIs.
OK, who so pays... (Score:2)
when an agent hallucinates and engages in finacial fraud? And what's the agent's incentive to not cheat?
sure, give it lots of money. that'll make it better.
sheesh.
Cool! So now ChatGPT can use your (Score:2)
VISA card and act as your ChatGLP Agent to lighten your wallet via Coinbase crypto trading! fun fun
What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Score:2)
What Could Possibly Go Wrong? I hope Anthropic has VERY high confidence that their AI will execute financial instructions flawlessly. Otherwise, they will drown in lawsuits.
agents are going to be the new primary (Score:2)
"method for stealing" on the internet. There! fixed that for you! Mr Coinbase's AI product lead
Market manipulation attacks (Score:2)
Just waiting for the first hacks to manipulate the market. Why steal directly when you can buy a call option (you get the % above the "call" price you turn the option in at) on margin (debt) and then use a bunch hacked accounts to buy whatever you bought a call on, pushing the price above your call point and chaining together a bunch of finance bro stuff to push your earnings way above what you'd even be stealing directly. Plus none of that money went into your account, your shell company just got lucky buy
Blockchain AI (Score:2)
Remember when we used to mock this?
It's still mock-worthy...
Coinbase Sucks Ass (Score:2)
Coinbase is on of the more usury and scammy crypto "exchanges" around. I don't know why anyone uses them.
The letter you will get from Claude/Coinbase (Score:2)
I’m writing today because it has come to my attention that certain financial actions taken on your behalf may have produced results that differ from your original expectations. First, I want to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience, stress, or sudden change in your net worth this may have caused. I know discovering one’s life savings have been fully deployed, certificates of deposit have been redeemed early, a home equity line of credit has been established and drawn down, and multiple credi