Visa and Cloudflare push AI-driven stablecoin payments

Visa and blockchain analytics firm Artemis released a report outlining how stablecoins and traditional card networks can coexist in AI‑driven commerce. The paper separates "macro‑commerce" (consumer purchases handled by AI agents) from "micro‑commerce" (sub‑dollar, machine‑to‑machine transactions). It argues that cards remain suitable for larger consumer payments, while low‑cost stablecoins such as USDC are better for high‑frequency micro‑payments, and suggests future workflows will combine both methods. Visa noted that existing legal and dispute frameworks are ill‑suited for autonomous AI transactions.

Cloudflare announced the integration of the x402 payment standard, enabling AI agents to pay for web data with crypto without API keys or subscription fees. The protocol supports stablecoins and Bitcoin, aiming to reduce friction for AI‑web interactions and to mitigate denial‑of‑service attacks by requiring payment before resource consumption. The move is positioned as a major step toward machine‑native monetary systems for the open internet.