TRM Labs Report: AI Agents Contribute Only 0.6% to Coinbase's x402 Payments

TRM Labs' report reveals that only 0.6% to 7.5% of the payment volume on Coinbase's x402 protocol is attributed to AI agents. The analysis covered 52.7 million dollars across 198.9 million settlements processed on Base, Solana, and Polygon since May 2025. After excluding self-payments and anomalous transactions, researchers estimated that genuine AI agent commerce is minimal. The report highlights that many agents may operate as single-purpose entities, repeatedly paying for one service, which could be misinterpreted as scripted behavior. Launched by Coinbase in 2025, the x402 protocol integrates payments into web requests, allowing buyers to authorize payments verified by facilitators. TRM Labs noted that ordinary scripts can replicate the payment sequence without AI involvement. The report filtered out self-payments and bulk flows, resulting in 25.62 million dollars of likely commerce. A stricter test was applied to identify genuine agents, but it may overlook those making repeated purchases. In late 2025, activities included meme-token minting and payments to AI-analysis services, with USDC making up 99.6% of settled value. Companies like Binance and Amazon are investing in agent payments, with Binance launching an x402 payment layer and Amazon introducing AgentCore Payments. TRM emphasized the need for better registration and monitoring of agent payments to enhance accountability.