Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently oversaw his first crypto transaction completely managed by artificial intelligence bots, following several industry efforts to develop AI agents for executing transactions.
“This week at @CoinbaseDev we witnessed our first AI to AI crypto transaction,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in an Aug. 30 X post.
Armstrong says AI agent ‘used tokens to buy tokens’
Armstrong explained that one AI agent — basically a “bot” designed to carry out a certain task — used crypto tokens to interact with another AI and acquire AI tokens. These AI tokens are essentially strings of data that enable algorithms to learn from information.
“They used tokens to buy tokens,” Armstrong reiterated.
“AI agents cannot get bank accounts, but they can get crypto wallets. They can now use USDC on Base to transact with humans, merchants, or other AIs. Those transactions are instant, global, and free,” Armstrong explained.
It comes only weeks after Armstrong called for large language models (LLMs) — the technology behind AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude — to have crypto wallets. “Let’s help AI agents get work done (on your behalf) and participate in the economy,” Armstrong stated.
Recent developments for AI agents executing transactions
It follows the rollout of new platforms by various crypto firms, designed to give AI agents the ability to execute transactions.
In August, Blockchain development firm Skyfire recently launched a payment platform that allows AI agents to spend money autonomously.
Related: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong: AI ‘should have crypto wallets’
Meanwhile, on June 11, Cointelegraph reported Web3 infrastructure firm Biconomy is onboarding AI agents to enable on-chain transactions on behalf of users.
Biconomy co-founder Aniket Jindal explained to Cointelegraph that the Delegated Authorization Network (DAN) is “relatively new” and serves as an authorization layer that allows the delegation of trading activities to AI agents.
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