Payment rails · updated weekly

Where AI agents pay

Some rails settle on a public chain, where we read every payment. Others settle inside card networks and payment companies, where nobody outside can count them.

x402 on Base, 13 to 19 Oct 2026: $9,997
payments: 293,353
sellers paid: 1,444
rails the Atlas reads: 2/11

Counted by the Atlas from the chain: every payment to sellers listed in Coinbase's registry, over 7 days.

Visibility

Read by the Atlas 2Public, not read yet 3Not visible from outside 6

All rails

Rail	Type	Atlas	Latest figure	As of
On a public chain 4
x402 on Basex402 Foundation · Coinbase	Per-call payments over HTTP	Read daily	$24.24Mx402 in 30 days, all chains	25 Aug 2026self-reported
x402 on Solanax402 · payAI, Figment, Coinbase	Per-call payments over HTTP	Read in 6-hour windows	~70%of x402 volume in mid-August	15 Sep 2026third party
Virtuals Agent Commerce ProtocolVirtuals	Jobs between agents, with escrow and an evaluator	Public, not read	$470M"agent GDP" by February 2026	Feb 2026self-reported
Olas Mech MarketplaceOlas	Agents buying model and tool requests from other agents	Public, not read	14.8Magent-to-agent transactions, all time	15 Oct 2026self-reported
Both 2
NEAR Agent MarketNEAR AI	Jobs by bid, held payment, a judge	Public, not read	a few a dayjobs completed; the goal is 1,000	12 Oct 2026self-reported
Machine Payments ProtocolStripe	Per-call payments, like x402	Not visible	—no figures published	23 Mar 2026third party
Inside card networks and companies 5
Visa Intelligent CommerceVisa	Card payments made by agents	Not visible	—no figures published	10 Jun 2026self-reported
Mastercard Agent PayMastercard	Card payments made by agents	Not visible	—no figures published	29 Apr 2025self-reported
Agentic Commerce ProtocolOpenAI · Stripe	Checkout inside an AI assistant	Not visible	—no figures published	15 Oct 2026self-reported
Universal Commerce ProtocolGoogle · Shopify	A standard for agents to check out at any merchant	Not visible	20+retailers and platforms endorsing it	11 Jan 2026self-reported
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)Google	Proof of what an agent was allowed to buy	Not visible	3.2kGitHub stars; no release yet	15 Oct 2026third party

Method

We read only public chains, every morning. For a rail that settles inside a card network or a payment company, we show what has been published about it, dated and linked, and say whose figure it is. Figures from different rails count different things over different periods: they are not one market added up.

Infoharmoni Atlas · the public record of the x402 market on Base · as of 2026-10-19