Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs published a report on Wednesday examining payment volume on Coinbase's x402 protocol. The findings indicate that autonomous artificial intelligence agents drive very little of the commerce on the network.
Coinbase launched the x402 protocol in 2025 to integrate payments directly into web requests. During a transaction, a buyer receives a price quote and signs a payment authorization. A facilitator then verifies the authorization, submits the blockchain transaction, and handles the network fee.
TRM analyzed $52.7 million across 198.9 million settlements processed by known x402 facilitators on Base, Solana, and Polygon since May 2025. Researchers removed self-payments, bulk flows from select payers, and sellers with fewer than 10 buyers. This left $25.62 million in likely commerce.
After filtering out anomalous flows, researchers estimated that just 0.6% to 7.5% of the remaining commerce by value originated from AI agents. USDC accounted for 99.6% of the settled value, totaling $52.47 million across the full period.
The report noted that ordinary scripts can execute the same payment sequence without an AI agent. Scheduled jobs, load tests, and self-dealing generate identical blockchain records, meaning raw protocol totals cannot accurately measure true agent commerce.
TRM used a strict screening process to identify agent activity. The researchers looked for facilitator broadcast payments with varying amounts averaging under one dollar. A stricter test required this pattern to persist across months, alongside public agent registration or payments directed to multiple sellers.
Researchers acknowledged limitations in their methodology. The criteria could miss genuine agents that repeatedly purchase a single service. The report noted that many current agents might be single purpose, paying one service repeatedly, which a script filter would misclassify.
Activity on the network shifted over time. Late 2025 volume included meme token minting and payments to an artificial intelligence analysis service. Volume concentrated in a single payment contract in early 2026 before agent service payments returned via an agent payment router around midyear.
Despite low measured usage, technology companies continue investing in agent payment infrastructure. Binance launched Agent OS in August with an x402 payment layer. Coinbase targeted agent and payment startups through a $1 million accelerator on Base. Amazon announced AgentCore Payments in May alongside Coinbase and Stripe to let agents pay for online services using stablecoins.
TRM also highlighted accountability gaps in agent transactions. On-chain registries let individuals declare ownership of an agent address, but this process remains voluntary and most participants ignore it.
TRM called for better registration systems and counterparty reputation tools that agents can check independently. The firm also recommended monitoring systems built for high volumes of small payments.
The rail already works, the TRM report stated. What is needed is accurate registration, counterparty reputation an agent can check on its own, and monitoring built for volume rather than value, concluding that agentic commerce will need agentic compliance.
