Coinbase launches Agentic Wallets to let AI agents hold and transact crypto
Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets, a new wallet infrastructure designed for autonomous AI agents to hold funds, manage digital identities, and execute onchain transactions without human intervention. The system integrates the x402 protocol — a machine-to-machine payment standard that has processed over 50 million transactions — and targets automated use cases like API fee payments, compute purchases, and inter-agent transfers. Developers can deploy and fund agents in under two minutes using Coinbase’s CLI and a prebuilt library of financial functions (trading, yield strategies, transfers, payments). Agents can transact on Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 network, without paying gas fees directly, easing continuous automated activity. Coinbase positions the product as foundational infrastructure for AI-driven onchain economies, enabling software agents to act as independent economic participants rather than passive tools.
Bullish
The launch is bullish because it expands onchain utility and lowers operational frictions for automated trading and machine-led transactions. Key positives: 1) Enabling AI agents to hold and move funds and pay for services (via the x402 protocol) can increase transaction volume and onchain demand, particularly on Base. 2) Gasless agent transactions on Base remove a recurring cost barrier, encouraging continuous automated strategies (bots, market-making, programmatic yield farming). 3) Fast developer onboarding and prebuilt finance functions may accelerate product and bot deployment, increasing active addresses and liquidity needs. Historical parallels: infrastructure that simplified smart-contract interactions and reduced gas frictions (e.g., Layer-2 launches, gas abstraction tools) often coincided with higher activity and token utility. Short-term effects: uptick in Base network activity, increased demand for assets used within agent strategies, and positive sentiment for Coinbase and Base. Expect moderate volatility as traders speculate on adoption. Long-term effects: if adoption scales, persistent higher onchain volume and new automated market participants could increase fee capture for Base-native ecosystems and boost related token demand. Risks: centralization concerns, security for autonomous agents, and regulatory scrutiny could temper upside if issues arise.