Coinbase CEO Puts Crypto on AI Stage: Base Hits Major Milestone
Vexoda Newsroom
Coinbase's Brian Armstrong champions agentic finance through his Base network and USDC stablecoin. With over 100 million transactions, the platform is at the forefront of AI-driven payments.
In a recent development, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has emphasized that artificial intelligence (AI) will not sideline traditional crypto assets but rather enhance their utility in financial services. This stance comes as Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network launched by Coinbase, surpassed 100 million AI-driven transactions.
Armstrong highlighted three key components of agentic finance: Base, USDC, and x402. The Base network is designed to facilitate faster and cheaper on-chain applications, while x402 enables automated stablecoin payments between software applications using the HTTP '402 Payment Required' standard.
USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin launched by Circle in 2018 with Coinbase’s backing, serves as one of the primary assets for these transactions. The combination of Base and x402 provides an infrastructure that supports autonomous machine-to-machine payments without human intervention.
According to Chainalysis data, agentic payment activity on Base via x402 surpassed 100 million transactions within nine months. These AI agents are typically newer users with smaller balances compared to regular Base users, indicating a growing trend towards automated financial interactions.
Armstrong's vision is that these AI agents will become active participants in the digital economy, making payments and interacting with various financial services autonomously. This development could significantly impact how businesses accept and process transactions, potentially disrupting traditional payment methods.
While critics argue that crypto should pivot to AI technologies, Armstrong believes it can coexist and even thrive as a means of programmable money for these agents. He argues that this will make crypto more important rather than less so in the evolving financial landscape.
Coinbase is set to report its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, with analysts expecting revenue down 13.8% year-over-year but flat earnings per share. The success of Base and agentic finance could provide a positive narrative for the company during this reporting period.
Source: Cointelegraph. Summarized and rewritten by the Vexoda Newsroom. This is market news, not financial advice.