Alchemy launches AI agent autonomous payment system, supporting settlement in USDC on the Base chain

Alchemy has announced the launch of a self-payment system for AI agents, allowing AI agents to automatically purchase computing power credits in USDC through on-chain wallets on the Base network, and access blockchain data services, including querying on-chain data, NFT holdings, multi-chain wallet balances, and real-time token prices, without human intervention.

The system utilizes Coinbase's x402 payment standard, transforming the HTTP 402 Payment Required response into an automatic settlement trigger to facilitate machine-to-machine transactions. Agent accounts can be funded with a minimum of 1 USD USDC, and once the credits are exhausted, the system automatically initiates a payment request and refills the balance.

Alchemy CEO Nikil Viswanathan stated that this system is aimed at developers building autonomous DeFi agents, portfolio management bots, and other on-chain applications. Major crypto applications such as Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap, and Aave have already been operating on Alchemy, and AI agents can now autonomously connect to the same infrastructure.