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Points of Focus
- Grayscale sees Ethereum and Solana as rails for AI-agent payments and automated finance.
- x402 logged 75.41 million transactions and $24.24 million in 30-day volume.
- USDC made up 99.8% of x402 value, leaving blockchains as the settlement rails.
Grayscale Research has put Ethereum and Solana at the center of its AI-payment thesis, arguing that autonomous agents will need programmable wallets to hold capital, pay for services and settle transactions without human checkout flows.
In an Aug. 11 note, Head of Research Zach Pandl pointed to micropayments, instant cross-border settlement and automated trading as areas where public blockchains could support agentic finance.
That thesis is already being tested through x402, an open HTTP payment protocol incubated by Coinbase. The protocol recorded 75.41 million transactions and $24.24 million in volume over the past 30 days, with 94,060 buyers and 22,000 sellers. The figures also include API monetization and other pay-per-request activity, so they shouldn’t be read as a measure of AI-agent payments alone.
AI adoption will create demands that public blockchains are built for:
↳ Payments: @ethereum $ETH & @solana $SOL provide the settlement infrastructure for agentic finance.
↳ Identity: @worldnetwork $WLD can provide verifiable online identity to distinguish humans and agents.… pic.twitter.com/MZCC0FJb2R— Grayscale (@Grayscale) August 11, 2026
Solana gains measurable x402 payment activity
Solana already has measurable x402 activity behind Grayscale’s payment thesis. The Solana Foundation says x402 has processed more than 35 million transactions and over $10 million in volume on Solana since launching there this summer. It cites roughly 400-millisecond finality and transaction costs around $0.00025 as reasons the network can handle frequent small payments.
Coinbase’s developer data shows the activity isn’t confined to Solana. Coinbase Developer Platform has processed more than 100 million x402 payments across Base and Solana, showing that activity also extends into Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem.
Ethereum AI payments lean on layer-2 networks
Ethereum brings programmable wallets and smart-account controls to the same thesis. Ethereum.org says x402 runs across Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, while EIP-4337 smart accounts can enforce spending limits, allowlists and session keys for autonomous software.
The Ethereum side of the thesis comes with a qualification. Ethereum.org points to low-cost L2s, rather than mainnet, for economical x402 micropayments. Base has emerged as the strongest measurable L2 example, recording 3.1 million x402 transactions and $1.2 million in value over the 30 days through May 29. Coinbase’s x402 facilitator also supports Arbitrum and World, but comparable public volume figures for those networks remain limited.
x402 itself remains chain-agnostic and also supports Solana, leaving activity free to shift between networks as agent-payment infrastructure develops.
Cloudflare’s Aug. 4 wallet rollout also shows how early some supporting infrastructure remains, with wallet handles available to reserve while API and content payments are still to come. At the asset layer, Circle puts USDC’s share of x402 transaction value at 99.8%.
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