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Stripe co-founder and President John Collison said he expects a “torrent” of AI agentic commerce to emerge in the coming years, and he believes stablecoins and high-throughput blockchains will power much of it.
Speaking on a recent podcast appearance, Collison argued that autonomous software agents are moving beyond experimentation and will increasingly handle real economic activity, from payments to capital allocation.
“You’re going to see a torrent of agentic commerce,” he said, adding that crypto-native rails are structurally well suited to support it.
Stripe, founded in 2010 by Irish brothers John and Patrick Collison, is one of the world’s largest private fintech firms, providing payment processing infrastructure to millions of businesses globally. The company has steadily expanded into crypto and stablecoin services in recent years, positioning itself as a bridge between traditional finance and programmable digital payments.
Collison’s comments reflect Stripe’s own recent moves. Earlier this year, Stripe integrated the x402 standard to enable AI agents to transact in USDC on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network. The integration allows software agents to autonomously send and receive stablecoin payments through Stripe’s infrastructure, in a step toward machine-to-machine commerce without human checkout flows.
AI commerce trend
The effort places Stripe alongside a growing cohort of firms building for what many in crypto call the “agentic economy” — a system in which AI agents hold wallets, manage balances, and execute transactions programmatically.
Coinbase recently rolled out tooling designed to “give any agent a wallet,” while MoonPay introduced “MoonPay Agents,” a non-custodial layer allowing AI systems to generate wallets and transact onchain. Ethereum developers have also moved toward formalizing standards to support agent-native activity on mainnet.
At its core, the agentic trend centers on software that does more than generate text or recommendations. These agents can reason, take action, and transact — potentially paying for APIs, rebalancing portfolios, executing trading strategies, or purchasing digital services on their own. Stablecoins, fiat-pegged tokens that settle 24/7 and integrate directly with programmable smart contracts, offer a frictionless settlement layer compared with traditional banking rails.
Collison suggested that high-throughput blockchains are particularly attractive in this context because agents may require rapid, low-cost execution at scale. While he did not single out a specific network, the emphasis aligns with Stripe’s broader experimentation across Ethereum-compatible ecosystems and stablecoin infrastructure.
Still, the space remains volatile.
Recent incidents have underscored the risks of granting financial autonomy to software. In one high-profile case reported by The Block, an AI agent created by an OpenAI developer accidentally transferred its entire memecoin treasury to a social media user after misinterpreting instructions — a reminder that automated capital movement still carries serious safety concerns.
Meanwhile, Stripe’s growing crypto and AI alignment comes at a moment of renewed strength for the company. Earlier this month, Stripe’s valuation jumped to $159 billion following a tender offer, reinforcing its status as one of the most valuable private fintech firms globally. Bloomberg also reported that Stripe has explored a potential acquisition of PayPal.
