WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
AI can already create its own money, in the form of cryptocurrency, but now that it can spend it to this transaction opens the door to a global economy that could one day be dominated and managed and manipulated by AI agents.
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A while ago I wrote about how it looked like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and crypto were made for one another – where AI could, for example, use crypto to buy all kinds of services to, perhaps, take over the world. And this week Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently oversaw his first crypto transaction completely managed by AI bots, following several industry efforts to develop platforms for AI agents to execute transactions.
“This week at CoinbaseDev we witnessed our first AI to AI crypto transaction,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in an Aug. 30 X post.
The Future of Money and Finance, by keynote Matthew Griffin
Armstrong explained that one AI agent – a “bot” designed to carry out a certain task – used crypto tokens to interact with another AI agent and acquire AI tokens. These AI tokens are essentially strings of data that enable algorithms to learn from information.
“They used tokens to buy tokens,” Armstrong reiterated.
He further explained that a key reason AI agents aren’t effective right now is their lack of transaction capabilities. Without a payment method, they struggle with basic tasks like booking plane tickets or hotels and even managing social media tasks beyond just creating content, such as promoting posts with paid ads.
“AI agents cannot get bank accounts, but they can get crypto wallets. They can now use USDC on Base to transact with humans, merchants, or other AIs. Those transactions are instant, global, and free,” Armstrong added. However, just what a millions of AI bots all trading with one another and other systems might do to the global economy is anyone’s guess.
It comes only weeks after Armstrong called for Large Language Models (LLMs) — the technology behind AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude — to have crypto wallets. “Let’s help AI agents get work done (on your behalf) and participate in the economy,” Armstrong stated.
It follows the rollout of new platforms by various crypto firms designed to give AI agents the ability to execute transactions.
In August, Blockchain development firm Skyfire launched a payment platform that allows AI agents to spend money autonomously.
Meanwhile, on June 11 other execs reported that Web 3.0 infrastructure firm Biconomy is onboarding AI agents to enable onchain transactions on behalf of users. Biconomy co-founder Aniket Jindal explained that the Delegated Authorisation Network is “relatively new” and serves as an authorization layer that allows the delegation of trading activities to AI agents.