Experience the Dawn of Agentic Commerce at Consensus 2026

A fundamental shift is underway in the world of commerce, driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain payments. AI agents, capable of autonomous perception, decision-making, and action, are starting to engage in transactions, including paying for APIs, settling invoices, and interacting with infrastructure in ways that traditional payment systems were not designed to handle. The existing payment landscape, with its credit cards, bank logins, and merchant onboarding flows, is ill-equipped to accommodate the needs of these agents. The question on everyone's mind is: what kind of financial infrastructure will these agents operate on, and who will build it? Consensus 2026 is poised to address these questions, bringing together over 15,000 influential minds from the crypto, AI, and finance sectors to shape the future of agentic commerce. According to Yat Siu, founder of Animoca, the sheer scale of AI agents - potentially exceeding the human population - necessitates a radical rethink of our financial infrastructure. Christian Catalini, MIT professor and founder of the Cryptoeconomics Lab, draws a distinction between assisted checkout and true agentic payments, emphasizing that the latter requires AI to be the counterparty. This is not a futuristic scenario but a near-term engineering challenge that Consensus 2026 aims to tackle. The internet, built for humans, is not suitable for agents, and companies like Google Cloud are investing in blockchain payment rails to address this need. Rich Widmann, Google Cloud's Global Head of Strategy for Web3, acknowledges the momentum building around agentic commerce and the need for open protocols like x402 to bring these use cases to scale. However, he also notes that most products are still designed for humans, not agents, creating friction that slows down agentic commerce. The 'rails race' is on, with protocols like x402 and MPP emerging as contenders for the agentic stack. Consensus 2026 will be the platform where these protocols are debated, and the early standard-setting discussion takes place. For those looking to dive deeper, CoinDesk University offers a comprehensive curriculum on building and deploying agentic payments, covering everything from first principles to advanced implementation. The window for shaping the future of agentic commerce is open, but it won't remain so forever. Join the 15,000+ builders, investors, and industry leaders at Consensus 2026, May 5-7, in Miami Beach, to have a voice in this pivotal moment.