Crypto: New Alchemy Release Autonomous Payment Rails For AI Agents On Base

The system enables AI agents to automatically pay for blockchain data and compute credits in USDC, as autonomous crypto applications gain traction.

Blockchain infrastructure company Alchemy has launched a system that allows autonomous AI agents to buy compute credits and access its blockchain data services using onchain wallets and USDC on Base.

According to the company’s announcement, the initial release allows AI agents to directly query blockchain networks, check nonfungible token (NFT) ownership, view wallet balances across multiple chains and access live token price data, with additional networks and services planned.

If an agent exhausts its prepaid compute credits, Alchemy issues a payment request that can be automatically settled in USDC (USDC) on Base, allowing the agent to continue operating without human intervention.

The company said agents can fund accounts with as little as $1 in USDC, and once credited, continue making API calls until the balance is depleted and another automated payment is required.

The system uses Coinbase’s x402 payment standard to convert an HTTP “402 Payment Required” response into an automatic billing trigger. The x402 is an open standard that allows web services to request onchain payments directly through HTTP responses, enabling machine-to-machine transactions without manual invoicing.

Nikil Viswanathan, CEO of Alchemy, told Cointelegraph that the system is aimed at developers building autonomous decentralized finance (DeFi) agents, portfolio management bots and other multi-step onchain workflows.

He said that several major crypto applications, including Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap, OpenSea, Aave and 0x, already rely on Alchemy to power transactions, adding:

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AI agents, software systems that can make decisions and execute tasks autonomously based on predefined goals and real-time data, have drawn growing attention over the past year. Nearly a quarter (23%) of organizations surveyed by McKinsey in November said they were expanding their use of agent-based systems.

Source: CoinTelegraph