The post Stablecoins Key Role in Agentic AI, Despite Limited Adoption: Bernstein appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Stablecoins could benefit from the rise of AI-driven payments over time, even as early adoption remains limited and contested, according to a new report from Bernstein. In a Monday note shared with Cointelegraph, the broker said stablecoins could help unlock machine-to-machine payments by making microtransactions viable and enabling programmable, conditional payments between software agents without a human in the loop. But Bernstein said traction so far has been limited. The note said Stripe and Tempo’s machine payments protocol recorded about $5,000 in stablecoin volume in its first week, while Coinbase’s x402 protocol handled no more than $25 million over the last 30 days. x402 is a payment standard developed by Coinbase that lets AI agents automatically make payments over the internet. The bigger point for Bernstein was that stablecoins do not need machine payments to succeed in order to keep growing. The note said stablecoin demand is already being driven by cross-border business payments, remittances, card-linked products and neobanking, making AI payments an upside case rather than the core thesis. The report follows growing interest in autonomous payment solutions. On Thursday, Visa’s crypto division launched a tool allowing AI agents to make same-day payments, while Stripe-backed Tempo launched its blockchain and payment protocol. X402 protocol payment flow. Source: Bernstein Bernstein said broader payment use cases are still the real growth engine for stablecoins. Its note estimated total stablecoin payment volume rose to $375 billion in 2025 from $213 billion in 2024, led by consumer-to-consumer flows, while business-to-consumer, business-to-business and consumer-to-business activity also increased. Related: Stablecoin issuers and fintechs race to own payment rails Coinbase, Circle remain best “proxies” for stablecoin adoption Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and stablecoin issuer Circle remain the “best proxies for stablecoin upside” due to their USDC (USDC) partnership, according to Bernstein. It also argued that USDC is…

---

Filed under: News - @ March 24, 2026 3:20 am