AWS launched a stablecoin payment system with Coinbase and Stripe, allowing AI agents to pay for services using USDC.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched a payment system on May 7 that allows AI agents to pay for digital services autonomously using stablecoins. The product, called Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments, was built in partnership with Coinbase and Stripe, and removes the need for developers to build separate billing systems for each service an agent accesses.
The system enables AI agents to pay for APIs, web content, MCP servers, and other online tools during task execution. Developers can choose between a Coinbase or Stripe wallet and fund it using either stablecoins or fiat currency. Transactions settle in roughly 200 milliseconds using USD Coin (USDC) on Ethereum's Base layer-2 network and on Solana (SOL).
The infrastructure relies on Coinbase's x402 protocol, an open standard based on the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" response code. It also uses wallet technology from Privy, a firm Stripe acquired in 2025. The x402 protocol is governed by the x402 Foundation, of which both AWS and Coinbase are members. Coinbase said the protocol has already processed more than 169 million machine-native payments across 590,000 buyers and 100,000 sellers.
Stablecoins Emerge as Default Payment Rail for AI Transactions
Preethi CN, director of AgentCore at AWS, said the platform is built to support multiple payment frameworks without requiring developers to rebuild agents as standards change. "AgentCore is designed to work with any framework and any protocol," CN said. AWS said it plans to integrate additional emerging protocols at the platform level over time.
Privy CEO Henri Stern said agents need a way to hold and spend money in order to function as economic actors. Brian Foster, Coinbase's head of infrastructure growth, said the integration gives AWS developers a ready-made solution for agent-based financial transactions. AWS said the initial release focuses on micropayments for APIs, AI tools, and paywalled content, with future versions potentially covering flight bookings, hotel reservations, and merchant purchases.
Stablecoins have gained traction as a payment layer for AI agent systems because they settle around the clock, carry low transaction costs, and support micropayments as small as fractions of a cent. Traditional payment infrastructure is generally not built to handle high-frequency, low-value transactions of that kind. The launch follows a similar service introduced the prior week by the Solana Foundation and Google Cloud, which gave AI agents per-request access to cloud APIs using stablecoins.
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