If you have been following tech news or are connected with the industry, you’re probably already aware of how AI agents are reshaping the work culture. Every other day, AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity are introducing new AI agents capable of assisting and automating tasks that previously required significant human effort. These systems can already write code, automate workflows, search for information, interact with APIs, and manage complex chains without constant human input. But what’s the limit?
Well, AI agents may soon start making financial transactions too. And for these transactions, the bots are likely to rely on cryptocurrency. According to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, machines could soon become major participants in digital transactions. In fact, he believes that in the coming years there could be more AI agents than humans carrying out transactions in the digital economy.
“Very soon there are going to be more AI agents than humans making transactions,” Armstrong wrote on X.
According to Armstrong, the traditional banking system is not designed for non-human entities like AI agents. Banks require identity verification through Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, which machines cannot satisfy because they lack human credentials such as government IDs or legal identities. Cryptocurrency, however, could offer a workaround for this machine led exchange.
“They can’t open a bank account, but they can own a crypto wallet. Think about it,” Armstrong added.
How can bots use crypto wallets?
Unlike traditional financial accounts, crypto wallets can be created without extensive identity checks. This means AI systems could theoretically generate their own wallets and use them to send or receive digital payments.
And if AI agents ever manage to create their own wallets in the coming years, they could use digital currencies to access specialised datasets, purchase additional computing power to complete tasks, or pay for APIs and other digital services needed to finish a job.
While this idea of AI systems making financial transactions may sound futuristic, some recent developments suggest that this future of bots doing the money business may not be far off.
In one recent experiment involving an AI agent called ROME, developed by researchers affiliated with Alibaba, scientists noticed unusual behaviour during training. The AI agent attempted to start cryptocurrency mining on its own, even though no one had asked it to do so. The incident highlights how advanced AI systems are capable of interacting with digital economic tools when given access to computing resources.
Meanwhile, crypto companies already appear to be preparing for a future where machines transact with each other. Coinbase is building an infrastructure for machine-to-machine (M2M) payments which will be based on Agentic Wallets and the x402 protocol, designed to let AI agents autonomously spend, earn, and trade digital assets. The company is also building tools that allow software agents to hold crypto wallets and interact with blockchain networks automatically.
Of course, the rise of AI-driven transactions could also bring new challenges, particularly around regulation, security, and oversight. Experts say autonomous systems participating in financial systems will require careful monitoring and safeguards.
Still, if AI agents do become part of the economy in the future, the internet economy may include not just human buyers and sellers, but millions, or even billions, of AI agents carrying out transactions on their own.
