Chainalysis reported in June that agentic payments via x402 crossed 100 million cumulative transactions in roughly nine months. That number has since climbed to approximately 169 million as of late July, according to CryptoBriefing, with 20 million transfers processed in the most recent 90-day window alone. The growth curve steepened sharply in the second half of 2025 and hasn't flattened.

The bet rests on Base holding its position as the default settlement layer for machine commerce. Stripe integrated x402 in February; Google followed. Base currently holds over $4 billion in total value locked. Perhaps the most telling signal: starting in June, 53% of web traffic to Base's developer documentation came from agentic visitors, not humans, according to Coinbase data cited by The Block.

• Payments above $1 shifted from 49% of total x402 value in early 2025 to 95% by early 2026, indicating a move from micropayment experiments to substantive machine-to-machine commerce.

SUMMARY: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong frames crypto as the payment layer for AI agents as Base settles 169 million agentic transactions and rolls out x402 SDK for businesses.