Coinbase Unveils AiFi Framework to Enable AI Agents for Autonomous Trading, Payments, and Fund Management

Coinbase has published a post outlining its Agentic Finance (AiFi) strategy, arguing that AI agents are emerging as participants in economic activities. In the future, they will not only make decisions on behalf of users but also need the ability to pay, receive payments, hold, and transfer assets. Coinbase divides AiFi into two core areas: "agentic trading" and "agentic commerce", and believes that cryptocurrencies and stablecoins can provide 24/7, programmable, global, and low-cost financial infrastructure. The exchange says it has launched products including Coinbase Advisor, Coinbase for Agents, x402, and Coinbase Business to equip AI agents with investment management, trading, and machine-to-machine payment capabilities. Among these, Coinbase for Agents connects to AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor via MCP, allowing users to set trading goals, permissions, and guardrails, with AI agents executing trades autonomously when conditions are met. Coinbase also disclosed that based on its open payment standard x402, it has processed more than 205 million transactions to date, with a total transaction value of $53 million, covering 200,000 merchants, of which 67% were transactions facilitated by Coinbase. Coinbase added that USDC currently accounts for 99% of on-chain agentic commerce transaction volume, and x402 makes up 97% of agentic finance protocol usage, with related activities primarily running on Base. Coinbase believes that AI agents will become a new type of economic participant, and cryptocurrencies can provide them with global, 24/7, and programmable financial infrastructure that the traditional financial system lacks.