Coinbase unveils tool for AI agents like Claude and Gemini to access crypto wallets
Quick Take
- The project signals growing interest among major tech players in giving AI models direct access to onchain financial systems.
- The tool comes on the heels of the launch of the x402 Foundation, an initiative backed by Coinbase and Cloudflare meant to standardize AI-payments.
Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, is launching a new system designed to enable AI agents to “get onchain.” The tool, called Payments MCP, will enable large language models — including top models like Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini — to access a blockchain wallet and transaction using crypto.
The move comes on the heels of the launch of the x402 Foundation, an initiative backed by Coinbase and Cloudflare meant to standardize AI-payments. Payments MCP was developed by Coinbase Developer Platform.
“Payments MCP extends this vision by giving AI agents the same onchain financial tools humans use, from wallets and onramps to stablecoin payments, all accessible through natural language,” Dan Kim, VP of business development and listings at Coinbase, and Erik Reppel, head of engineering of the Coinbase Developer Platform, wrote in an announcement.
An MCP, not to be confused with the MPC cryptography subfield, is short for a Model Context Protocol — a framework that lets AI models access external tools and services. Kim and Reppel noted that crypto rails, particularly stablecoins, “are the ideal payment infrastructure for agentic commerce.”
“They move at the speed of code, integrate seamlessly with APIs, and enable autonomous agents to act without human friction,” the developers wrote. “For the first time, widely used LLMs can natively connect to the crypto economy and payment protocols like x402, bridging the gap between AI and decentralized finance.”
Notably, Payments MCP can be run locally on a desktop, accessed “with little user input,” and customized for specific agent needs.
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