Article Details

Stripe Taps Base to Automate x402 AI Agent Payments

TL;DR

• Stripe launched x402 payments on Base to let AI agents transact with USDC through handshakes, supported by a Purl CLI and sample code.
• Merchants can charge agents through PaymentIntents by generating a deposit address, instructing payment, and tracking settlement via API, webhook, or Dashboard.
• The feature rolls out to early developers starting February 11 and links to ACP and Google’s AP2 on shared commerce standards and permissions.

Stripe has launched x402 payments on Base to enable automated handshakes between AI agents transacting with Circle’s USDC, pitching the feature as economic plumbing for autonomous software. Stripe is betting that agent payments will become a default checkout flow, not a niche experiment. Product manager Jeff Weinstein said the company is previewing “machine payments” that let developers charge agents with a few lines of code, supported by an open source CLI called Purl plus Python and Node samples. He argued that while billions of humans transact today, trillions of agents are expected to arrive soon.

https://twitter.com/jeff_weinstein/status/2021331771569340885

PaymentIntents Flow, Rollout Plan, and the Agent Economy Stack

Weinstein said businesses can charge AI agents for API usage, MCP calls, or HTTP requests by using Stripe’s familiar PaymentIntents API. The product reframes payments from subscriptions to per action pricing, which better matches how agents consume services. The flow starts with creating a PaymentIntent, after which Stripe generates a unique deposit address for the transaction. Merchants return that address to an agent with instructions to send funds or a payment token, then track status via API, webhook, or Dashboard until funds settle into the Stripe balance. Weinstein added agent specific pricing plans will follow.

Stripe is launching with support for x402 using USDC on Base and said more protocols, payment methods, currencies, and chains may be prioritized later based on developer feedback. By limiting the first release to USDC on Base, Stripe is optimizing for predictable pricing and clean settlement paths. Weinstein said the feature will roll out to a handful of early developers starting February 11 and invited feedback by email, with a broader release planned over the coming weeks. Some observers argued session key spend controls and merchant allowlists should ship early to simplify production deployment materially.

Stripe said the launch reflects its expanding focus on an agent economy where software programs operate autonomously and manage their own finances, buying data, compute, and digital services without human intervention. The broader signal is convergence: AI, fintech, and crypto are aligning around standardized authorization and payment rails. Stripe’s head of agentic commerce Ahmed Gharib pointed to the Agentic Commerce Protocol, announced in September, as a live standard for programmatic commerce flows between agents and businesses, built with OpenAI. Google’s AP2, focused on verifiable user permissions, was cited as a complementary step for safer spending.