Amazon Web Services has partnered with Coinbase and Stripe to enable AI agents to execute transactions using stablecoins, marking one of the clearest signs yet that Big Tech is embracing blockchain-based payment rails for the emerging agentic economy.
On Thursday, AWS unveiled "Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments," a new set of features built to enable "AI agents to instantly access and pay for what they use, such as web content, APIs, MCP servers, and other agents," the company said in a statement. "We’ve built these capabilities in partnership with Coinbase and Stripe, who are providing the wallet infrastructure and payment rails that power the first set of capabilities."
Coinbase also published a statement saying developers will be able to create “agentic payment solutions” using the x402 protocol which allow AI agents to make micropayments using USDC stablecoins. USDC, issued by Circle, is Coinbase's stablecoin of choice.
Like the Solana Foundation's solution released last week providing agentic access to Google Cloud services, AWS's new solution will enable AI agents built on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore to make real micropayments to pay for services and access APIs by using a Coinbase or Stripe-powered wallet.
Stripe-backed blockchain Tempo released the Machine Payments Protocol, an open HTTP-native standard for AI agents to transact, similar to the x402 protocol incubated by Coinbase.
Increasingly, technology companies are leaning into the emerging “agentic economy,” where AI agents autonomously search for services and execute transactions on behalf of users. As part of that push, blockchain-based stablecoins are emerging as a key payment rail because of their low cost and programmability.
“This marks the first managed payment capabilities purpose-built for autonomous agents,” AWS said. Enabling AI agents to make micropayments is considered a cornerstone to building autonomous transaction systems, as these payments often involve amounts as small as fractions of a cent.
Developers using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments will be able to choose between a Coinbase or a Stripe wallet and then fund their wallets using stablecoins or fiat, AWS said. Several projects have also launched recently to give bots access to virtual Mastercard and Visa cards.
"x402 itself is an open, neutral protocol governed by the x402 Foundation. Both AWS and Coinbase are members of the Foundation," Coinbase said Thursday.