AI agents have made 138M crypto payments, and the US accounts for 88% of AI inference spend

Zach DavidsonOct 14, 2026

Per Chainalysis, AI agents are now paying for data, compute and models through Coinbase's x402 protocol, mostly in sub-10-cent payments that card networks can't handle profitably. US-linked wallets account for 88% of AI inference payments, and China 0.1%.