Overview
- Amazon Web Services, which launched the Bedrock AgentCore Payments preview Thursday, now lets AI agents pay for APIs, data and paywalled content using USDC stablecoins.
- Transactions run on Coinbase’s x402 protocol over Base and Solana and Coinbase reports typical settlement in about 200 milliseconds at less than a cent per payment.
- AgentCore handles wallet authentication and transaction signing through a single API while keeping private keys from agents and enforcing budgets, compliance checks and audit logs.
- The preview is available across U.S. East and West, Europe and Asia Pacific with Coinbase and Stripe’s Privy wallets supported, and multiple outlets report funding via USDC or fiat.
- AWS says the first focus is micropayments, with a roadmap to bookings and merchant purchases, and Coinbase notes x402 has processed more than 169 million payments as agents can tap thousands of x402 services such as Exa, Messari and Browserbase.