Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has forecasted that autonomous AI agents could outspend humans, significantly increasing demand for USDC. Armstrong highlighted that these agents, which conduct machine-to-machine transactions for data and services, are already utilizing USDC for on-chain payments. He emphasized that this emerging "agentic economy" could surpass the human economy, creating a surge in demand for fast, dollar-backed digital payments. Coinbase's Q1 2026 earnings report revealed that USDC and Base are central to on-chain stablecoin transactions by AI agents, with 99% of these transactions using USDC and over 90% occurring on Base. The company is developing a comprehensive payment stack, including USDC, Base, and the x402 payment protocol, to facilitate these transactions. The x402 protocol, which simplifies payments for services without traditional onboarding, has already processed 75.41 million transactions in the past month. Coinbase's Agentic.market has settled approximately 165 million transactions, with Base handling 85% of these. Collaborations with AWS and Stripe are expanding the use of x402 for stablecoin micropayments, while Google Cloud and Solana explore alternative solutions. As AI agent payments grow, Coinbase aims to position itself at the forefront of this shift by building the necessary infrastructure.