Jesse Pollak of Coinbase Foresees AI Agents Revolutionizing Crypto Payments

The swift emergence of AI agents is transforming the online payment landscape, with crypto infrastructure poised to play a pivotal role, according to Jesse Pollak of Coinbase. In a recent interview with CoinDesk, Pollak noted that what was deemed nearly impossible just nine months ago has become entirely feasible, thanks to the rapid advancement of autonomous AI systems. As these agents continue to evolve, the need for native transaction capabilities has become increasingly evident. “Software-defined agents require software-defined money,” Pollak explained, pointing to the growing interest in agentic payments, where AI systems can autonomously pay for services such as data access, compute, or travel bookings. Pollak expressed his hope that the x402 open-source payments protocol, developed by Coinbase in collaboration with industry giants like Microsoft, Google, and Mastercard, will be a crucial component of this new payment landscape. This protocol enables on-demand API payments without the need for subscriptions or traditional billing systems. By leveraging blockchain-based payments, agents can make a single API call or smart contract call to transfer funds globally, almost instantly, and at virtually no cost, according to Pollak. The x402 protocol has already gained significant traction, with approximately $48 million in payment volume having flowed through it so far. Notably, about 95% of these transactions have occurred on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network founded by Pollak and incubated by Coinbase. The ecosystem is expanding rapidly, with integrations spanning AI providers, data platforms, and travel services that agents can access directly. Pollak’s long-term vision is to create an open marketplace where agents can programmatically access a wide range of services without encountering paywalls or requiring human intervention. He described a system where software can seamlessly discover, purchase, and utilize digital services in real-time. While fully autonomous businesses are beginning to emerge, Pollak believes the more significant near-term shift will come from individuals augmenting themselves with AI. Top performers are now leveraging agents to further enhance their performance, Pollak noted, describing workflows powered by multiple parallel AI systems. For the crypto industry, the primary challenge remains adoption. According to Pollak, the solution lies not in better marketing but in making crypto invisible to the user. It will become much easier to promote crypto once it becomes an integral part of the user experience, rather than something that needs to be explicitly promoted, he said.