Crypto spent more than a decade trying to convince humans they needed digital wallets, programmable money, and payment networks that never close. AI agents may flip that equation. They could become the first major class of users for whom those features are less a sales pitch and more a technical requirement.
That possibility is starting to shape product plans at some of crypto’s biggest companies. Coinbase, Kraken and Circle are building products and infrastructure around a future where software agents can hold funds, trade assets, buy information and settle transactions with limited human involvement, CNBC reported.
The shift could give crypto something it has struggled to find outside trading: sustained demand tied to actual software activity.
Coinbase, Kraken and Circle Bet AI Agents Could Unlock Crypto’s Next Growth Wave
According to CNBC, Coinbase is already moving in that direction. Its Coinbase for Agents experience lets users create isolated accounts that can be handed to AI agents. Lincoln Murr, AI product lead at Coinbase, told CNBC that agents could eventually trade, rebalance portfolios, or pay for premium information.
“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,” Murr said.
Kraken is pursuing a similar idea through agentic trading. The exchange is rebuilding its app around AI agents that can continuously monitor markets, identify opportunities and execute trades. The goal is to bring capabilities once associated with sophisticated trading firms closer to ordinary investors.
Gemini President Cameron Winklevoss sees AI shrinking that gap.
“It used to be that [if you’re not] retail, you’re a heavily capitalized high-frequency trader or proprietary trading firm – there is an ocean between that and the average retail user … and that ocean narrows quite a bit,” Winklevoss said.
Stablecoins could become the payment rails for AI agents
Trading may be the obvious starting point, but payments could become the bigger story.
AI agents operating autonomously face a basic problem: traditional financial systems were built around humans and institutions. Bank accounts, credit cards and payment processors rely heavily on identity checks, account permissions and systems where a person or company ultimately controls the transaction.
Crypto infrastructure works differently. Digital wallets can interact directly with software, blockchains operate around the clock, and smart contracts can execute transactions based on predefined conditions.
Stablecoins add another piece. Their relatively stable value makes them far more practical for machine payments than volatile cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
“Conventional banking systems are really poorly suited to real-time agent-to-agent, machine-to-machine commerce,” Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom told CNBC.
“The reason why this is becoming a bit of a crypto story is not that the primary thing that’s going to be exchanged is crypto. It’s just at the end of the day, stablecoins and smart contracts allow AI agents to send payments and settle transactions … automatically, without requiring human oversight.”
That distinction matters. The AI opportunity for crypto may have little to do with persuading millions of people to abandon dollars. It could instead involve putting dollars, represented by stablecoins, onto infrastructure software can use directly.
Circle is betting on that thesis. The company has positioned USDC as programmable digital dollars for internet-native transactions and is developing its Arc blockchain as infrastructure for agentic commerce.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said activity on Arc could increase USDC adoption and transaction volume. He sees room for banks to participate too, including through tokenized deposits that interact with USDC.
The timing is significant. Traditional financial institutions are pursuing stablecoins following the GENIUS Act, creating potential competition for issuers such as Circle. AI-driven transaction volume could open another source of demand just as that market becomes more crowded.
None of this guarantees that armies of autonomous agents will suddenly begin moving billions of dollars across blockchains. Security, permissions, identity, fraud prevention and accountability remain difficult problems. Giving software greater control over money creates risks alongside new capabilities.
The crypto industry itself is changing at the same time. Bitcoin remains well below its October peak, and exchanges are pushing beyond cryptocurrency trading into stocks, commodities, payments, lending and banking services.
Kraken Chief Data Officer Kamo Asatryan sees AI as part of that transition.
“The fun casino days of bitcoin are over,” Asatryan said. “There’s opportunity to really discuss with AI – regarding any given asset that you’re interested in – what it means for you … whether that’s bitcoin or a random meme coin or even an equity.”
Crypto has spent years searching for the application that takes it beyond speculation. The answer may turn out to be users nobody was thinking about during the industry’s early years.
They may not be people at all.
