Key highlights:

  • Brian Armstrong says leaving crypto to build in AI is scarcity thinking, predicting a symbiotic relationship for both concepts.
  • The Coinbase CEO argues that AI agents will require crypto to make payments over traditional finance systems. 
  • Already, AI agents are using stablecoins for programmable payments, foreshadowing Armstrong’s prediction. 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) agents will trigger meteoric growth for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Aware of the changing tide, Coinbase has unveiled a raft of agentic AI tools to capture a significant share of the market, but it faces rising competition from its peers.

AI agents will fire up crypto’s next big rally, says Brian Armstrong

In an X post, Armstrong criticized thought leaders for urging crypto developers to pivot to AI, branding it as “zero-sum, scarcity thinking.” Armstrong argued that AI as a megatrend takes 

nothing away from cryptocurrency, noting that both industries can thrive side by side.

The Coinbase founder predicted that AI agents will rely on crypto rails over traditional payment systems to complete transactions. For Armstrong, AI agents will transact “far more per day than all humans combined, requiring real-time programmable money which is essentially crypto.

In terms of use cases, Armstrong pointed to AI agents holding funds and paying for things with crypto wallets. He highlighted the rise of AI agents trading on behalf of users with advanced functionalities around tax planning and portfolio rebalancing.

Already, Coinbase has positioned itself as a first mover in the space, unveiling a slew of AI functionalities. In June, the US-based exchange launched AI trading agents for its users, building on its successful tango with Agentic Wallets

Despite Coinbase’s first-mover advantage, competition is heating up in the space. Ripple rolled out a developer toolkit for agentic payments on the XRP Ledger with other crypto-native firms jostling for market share.

“We pioneered this with the x402 protocol, Base, and USDC, which now power the vast majority of all agentic payments,” said Armstrong. “Welcome to the world of Agentic Finance (AiFi).  This is what Coinbase is building.

Agentic AI takes crypto by storm

The numbers support Armstrong’s thesis that agentic AI will lean on crypto and stablecoins to make millions of daily payments. On Base, AI-agent traffic has surpassed human traffic, with micropayments surging in volume to 95% in a single year.

 

Source: Chainalysis

Internet native payments protocol x402 has recorded over 150 million transactions and $41 million in cumulative volume in less than 10 months since launch. Despite Base controlling a lion’s share of x402 volume, Arbitrum, Solana, and Casper are inching forward.

Several crypto-native companies are building on-chain solutions to support the incoming avalanche of agentic AI to the ecosystem. Zooming out, AI agent startups have raised nearly $2 billion in July, underscoring institutional interest in the emerging sector.

As AI continues to garner demand, Bernstein urged Bitcoin miners to secure AI infrastructure deals to weather the cryptocurrency winter and stay afloat. Hut8 and TeraWulf have entered similar agreements with AI service providers, trading energy infrastructure for cash as miner profitability tanks.