Coinbase has shipped a developer tool that lets popular AI agents open wallets, onramp USDC and pay for APIs over the web’s long-dormant “Payment Required” code. It’s a small launch with large consequences: metered access to data, compute and content becomes as easy as an HTTP retry — and a new compliance category (“know your agent”) comes into focus.
October 23, 2025
The news, in plain English
On Thursday, Coinbase released Payments MCP, a desktop tool that connects mainstream AI agents (Claude, Gemini, Codex and others) to a wallet, fiat onramp and x402—an open protocol that turns the HTTP 402 Payment Required status into an actual payment handshake.
