As AI agents begin to conduct economic work and transact with each other, they will create an "agentic economy." Our current financial system is ill-equipped for this future, lacking the ability to handle the billions of instant, global, and micro-scale transactions that will become commonplace.

The initial hype around using crypto for decentralized AI compute has faded due to high costs. Instead, VCs like Dragonfly Capital are focused on agentic payments, where swarms of AI agents will need a global, programmable payment rail for micropayments—a problem blockchain is well-suited to solve.

Microtransactions have historically failed because the 'mental load' of a human deciding on a small payment outweighs the value. AI agents, which can scrutinize tiny decisions without cognitive cost, can enable a new economy of per-use payments for data, content, and APIs.

To facilitate the emerging agentic economy, Circle developed a system for transactions priced at a micro-level previously impossible. This allows AI agents to pay for services, data, or intelligence from other agents in real-time, high-volume scenarios.

As AI agents become sophisticated, they'll need to pay for services. Traditional banking is too slow and fragmented for them. Crypto, as the internet's native money, provides the instant, global, low-fee rails for AI agents to transact with each other and with web services, creating a major new use case.

Micropayments failed due to human friction and subscription models. AI agents, however, need to consume many services ephemerally for complex tasks. This creates a natural demand for a micro-consumption economy that can be facilitated by stablecoins.

For an AI to operate autonomously—earning and spending money—it needs a native digital currency. Traditional financial systems are built for human or corporate entities, making it difficult for an AI to become a credit card merchant. Crypto provides the necessary 'internet money' infrastructure.

Current payment rails are not built for AI agents. Stripe's leadership argues the coming wave of automated, machine-driven commerce will necessitate new, high-throughput blockchains. This anticipated need for a new financial infrastructure to support agentic commerce is the core thesis behind their incubation of platforms like Tempo.

The financial system is unprepared for the coming wave of AI agents. These agents will perform tasks and require payment, creating trillions of micropayments. Current infrastructure from Stripe, Visa, or Mastercard cannot handle this volume, creating a massive opportunity for new protocols to facilitate the 'agent economy'.