Base, the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain from crypto exchange Coinbase, has launched a tool to connect Base accounts to artificial intelligence agents for blockchain operations.

Base said on Tuesday that its new Base MCP (Model Context Protocol) allows users to ask AI agents such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT to transfer funds, swap tokens, check balances, review transaction history, and use supported apps within the ecosystem.

The tool lets users manage their crypto directly from an AI model’s chat interface and can also interact with crypto protocols such as Morpho, Moonwell, Uniswap, Aerodrome, Avantis, Bankr and Virtuals, said Base.

The AI agent proposes an action in the chat, then the Base wallet opens in a new window where users can confirm or cancel the transaction. The agent does not have access to private keys, and every action must be confirmed by the user.

Agentic payments have been touted as the next major use case for crypto, as backers argue AI models will have issues accessing the banking system and will need to use digital assets to transact.

Base said that every transaction the agent proposes goes through the same review flow users see for any Base account request, with asset changes simulated before a user confirms.

Lincoln Murr, head of AI Product for Coinbase, told Fortune that “unlike siloed agentic wallets that only live in a terminal, your Base Account travels with you — trades, history, and portfolio sync whether you’re in-agent or in the Base App.”

Base MCP will also expand the adoption of the Coinbase x402 protocol, an agentic AI payment standard the company launched in May 2025.

Related: Fireblocks launches agentic payment support, joins x402 Foundation

Murr described MCP as a “nice wrapper” on top of APIs. Together with x402, it enables a new micro-transaction economy where agents can make tiny payments in crypto.

However, that economy is currently in its early stages, with x402 processing just $1.1 million in volume over the past 30 days, according to x402scan. 

X402 statistics over the past 30 days. Source: x402scan

The use of AI agents for crypto payments has its detractors, with a recent research paper from Google and leading universities saying that AI agents should be treated as an untrusted system component.

The researchers said that AI agents should clearly distinguish between instructions and untrusted data to avoid attackers duping the agent by hiding malicious instructions.

Earlier this week, the developer platform Socket discovered malware targeting crypto developers by injecting hidden instructions to hijack AI coding assistants. 

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Britain has imposed sanctions on several crypto-related firms and financial networks linked to Russia, including entities registered in the United Arab Emirates and Georgia, as part of a new crackdown on sanctions evasion tied to Moscow’s war economy.

According to the UK government, the latest sanctions package freezes assets connected to the Kremlin-backed A7 network and blocks British firms from maintaining correspondent banking relationships or processing payments involving the targeted entities.

British authorities said the network had been used to move funds through foreign financial systems, support procurement activity, and bypass restrictions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Alongside traditional financial institutions, the measures also cover crypto exchanges and companies operating Russia-focused payment platforms. A Kyrgyz bank and several businesses registered in the UAE and Georgia were included in the action, while multiple individuals tied to the network also faced sanctions.

In a statement released on Tuesday, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Britain was working with allied countries to “expose, disrupt and dismantle” financial channels supporting Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.

“We will continue to act fast and decisively, alongside our allies, to expose, disrupt, and dismantle these networks, and ensure those enabling Russia’s aggression face consequences,” said Cooper.

The action arrives as Western governments continue tightening oversight of crypto platforms accused of facilitating restricted transactions involving sanctioned states and entities.

Britain expands scrutiny of crypto payment networks

British officials described the sanctioned entities as part of what they called “shadow financial systems” operating outside traditional compliance frameworks.

According to the UK government, the A7 network played a role in rerouting transactions and maintaining access to foreign banking infrastructure despite existing sanctions.

Meanwhile, Britain has recently stepped up investigations into crypto firms allegedly linked to Iran and Russia-linked financial flows.

Earlier in March, Companies House moved to dissolve crypto exchange Zedxion after authorities concluded that information submitted during incorporation was “misleading, false or deceptive.”

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project previously reported that Zedxion’s listed director, Elizabeth Newman, was likely a fabricated identity. According to the investigation, the platform also used stock photographs in promotional materials tied to the supposed executive profile.

Separate analysis published by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs found that Zedxion and its affiliated platform Zedcex processed roughly $1 billion connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

TRM Labs said those transactions accounted for about 56% of the exchanges’ total volume before rising to nearly 87% in 2024, when IRGC-linked flows reached around $619.1 million.

Russian fuel restrictions remain under phased implementation

The sanctions package was announced less than a week after Britain delayed a planned ban on diesel and jet fuel imports refined from Russian crude in third countries. UK authorities said the postponement was intended to reduce supply pressure rather than soften the country’s position on sanctions enforcement.

British officials maintained that the fuel restrictions would still move forward under what they described as a phased implementation process. At the same time, London has continued targeting payment networks, shell entities, and cross-border financial systems that authorities believe help Russia maintain trade and procurement activity despite international restrictions.

XRP keeps moving in circles around the same range that has controlled price action for months, and the latest failed breakout near $1.36 only reinforced how difficult it has become for buyers to build sustained momentum. The market is still compressing underneath resistance, though the lack of aggressive selling below $1.30 also suggests larger holders are not fully stepping away yet.

News Background

• Sentiment across crypto markets weakened during the session, with fear-driven positioning rising to the highest levels in roughly three weeks.

• On-chain data still showed XRP leaving major exchanges, a pattern some traders interpret as longer-term accumulation rather than active distribution.

• Analysts also continued highlighting a larger symmetrical triangle structure that has compressed XRP price action since early 2025.

Price Action Summary

• XRP traded between $1.3039 and $1.3429 before settling near $1.32 during the May 27 session.
• The largest volume event came during a failed breakout attempt near $1.36, where more than 62M XRP traded before price reversed lower.
• Late-session selling pushed XRP briefly below $1.324 before buyers stabilized the move near support into the close.

Technical Analysis

• XRP remains stuck inside a tightening consolidation structure between roughly $1.30 and $1.38.
• Repeated failures near $1.36 continue reinforcing that area as the market’s main resistance zone.
• Momentum still looks weak in the short term after price failed to reclaim broken support levels near $1.337.
• At the same time, support near $1.30 continues holding despite multiple retests, keeping the broader compression structure intact for now.

What traders should watch

• $1.30 remains the key support floor. Losing it would likely shift focus toward deeper downside targets in the mid-$1.20 range.
• $1.36-$1.38 stays the critical breakout zone XRP needs to clear before momentum can improve meaningfully.
• The longer the range tightens, the higher the odds of a sharper volatility expansion once price finally breaks out of consolidation.

Base has launched Base MCP, a new tool that connects Base Accounts to AI agents and lets users manage crypto actions through chat. 

The Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer-2 network said the tool can support transfers, token swaps, balance checks, transaction reviews, and x402 payments.

The launch comes as Coinbase expands its role in AI-driven crypto payments. The news angle is clear: Base is trying to make crypto wallets easier to use through AI agents, while keeping user approval at the center of each transaction.

Base MCP brings wallets into AI chat

Base MCP works with AI clients that support Model Context Protocol, including ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, and Cursor. Once connected, users can ask an AI agent to track portfolios, send funds, swap tokens, check transaction history, and use supported Base apps from the same chat flow.

The system does not give the AI agent direct control over private keys. When an agent proposes a transaction, Base Account opens a separate review window where the user can confirm or reject the action. Base said every transaction shows expected asset changes before approval.

Base adds DeFi apps to AI agent access

At launch, Base MCP includes skill plugins for Moonwell, Morpho, Uniswap, Avantis, Bankr, Aerodrome, and Virtuals. These integrations allow AI agents to help users explore lending markets, manage liquidity, execute swaps, review token launches, and interact with on-chain perps markets.

Base said developers can also build custom plugins that return unsigned transaction details to Base MCP. The user still signs through Base Account, which keeps final approval outside the AI agent’s hands. That setup may help limit some wallet risks, but it still depends on clear prompts, safe plugins, and careful user review.

x402 links Base MCP to AI payments

Base MCP also supports x402 payments, which are designed for small payments by AI agents and web services. According to Base documentation, AI assistants can pay x402-enabled APIs with USDC on Base or Base Sepolia.

Coinbase has been building this stack through x402 and Agentic.market. As previously reported by crypto.news, Agentic.market lets autonomous agents find and buy services using USDC, while earlier x402 activity had reached about 165 million settled transactions across more than 480,000 agents at launch.

Moreover, AWS added Coinbase x402 to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments, letting AI agents pay for services in USDC. Stripe’s x402 support on Base and AllUnity’s agentic payment layer using Coinbase’s x402 standard.

Security concerns remain part of the rollout

Base says “nothing happens onchain without your explicit approval,” and says its MCP server never holds or accesses user private keys.

Still, AI-agent security remains under scrutiny. A recent report citing researchers from Google, Meta, Gray Swan AI, EmbraceTheRed, and universities said AI agents should be treated as untrusted system components and should separate trusted instructions from untrusted data.

The warning followed another security case in which Socket reported a malware campaign targeting crypto and AI developers through malicious software packages. That report said attackers were trying to steal wallet data, SSH keys, cloud credentials, and API keys.

Bitcoin slid to $75,498 in Asian hours Tuesday, leaving crypto markets out of step with the equity rally that pushed global stocks to record highs overnight.

XRP, ether, and Solana were each down as much as 1% in the past day, per CoinDesk data, while Zcash (ZEC) dropped 9% to $564, the biggest single move among the top 15. Hyperliquid (HYPE) bucked the cohort at $59.99, up 1.4% on the day and now sitting just behind Dogecoin on market cap. Tron (TRX) is the quiet performer of the past week, climbing steadily as the rest of the majors held narrow ranges.

What traders are now watching is a setup forming on the bitcoin chart. FXPro analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said in an email the price is finding support near the rising 50-day moving average, while the 200-day moving average briefly acted as resistance earlier in May.

The two lines are on track to cross in the coming weeks, a setup known as a golden cross, which is generally read as a bullish signal. A break of either moving average before the cross could set the direction for crypto markets through the next several weeks, he said.

The flow data has been less encouraging. Spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. saw $1.74 billion in withdrawals over the past two weeks, per CryptoOnchain. Retail traders have been adding leverage in the meantime, a combination that has historically preceded sharp liquidation cascades when the market turns against the crowd.

The pattern is showing up at the same time the broader market is asking which asset gives the signal first. Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, said ether remains the critical chart to watch, with repeated failures ahead of $2,400 reinforcing the importance of that resistance band.

A decisive daily close above $2,400 would mark a major technical shift and likely bring renewed institutional participation, Kruger said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission added another piece to the institutional puzzle on Monday, approving the listing of options on a bitcoin index calculated from BTC prices across multiple exchanges. It is the first instrument of its kind, with existing crypto options on U.S. stock exchanges limited to those tied to spot ETF shares.

Equities went the other way overnight, meanwhile.

The MSCI All Country World Index rose for a sixth straight day to a record. South Korea’s Kospi is up about 100% on the year, making it the best-performing major equity gauge globally. Micron Technology jumped 19% in U.S. trading to cross $1 trillion in market value, joining SK Hynix in the chip stocks at that level. Brent crude slipped 1.5% to $98 on signs of progress in U.S.-Iran negotiations. Treasury yields edged lower, with the 10-year at 4.47%.

Bitcoin’s lag behind equities has been one of the cleanest market signals of the past month. Whether that gap closes through a chip-led equity pullback or a bitcoin catch-up depends on which side of the moving average crosses first.

Strive purchased 1,109 Bitcoin between May 19 and May 22, increasing its holdings to 16,500 BTC, according to a Tuesday SEC filing.

The company said it held about $93.3 million in cash and cash equivalents as of May 22, alongside roughly $50.1 million in fair value tied to its holdings of Strategy’s Stretch preferred stock product, STRC. The Dallas, Texas-based company also said it is evaluating refreshed at-the-market stock sale programs that could fund additional Bitcoin (BTC) purchases.

Strive boosted its Class A common shares outstanding by more than 2.2 million shares during the period, while its SATA preferred stock count rose by about 515,000 shares, reflecting continued use of equity-linked financing tied to its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

The filing follows Strive’s announcement earlier this month that it would start paying daily dividends on its SATA preferred shares at a 13% annualized rate beginning in June. The company described SATA as the first listed US security designed to distribute dividends every business day. It also announced it had eliminated all outstanding debt.

Strive is an asset manager founded by former US presidential candidate and current Republican gubernatorial candidate in Ohio Vivek Ramaswamy that has increasingly adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy similar to Strategy.

Data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET shows the company now ranks as the seventh-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder, with roughly $1.3 billion in BTC on its balance sheet.

Top 10 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

Related: Saylor’s Strategy scoops $2B Bitcoin, holdings reach 843,738 BTC

Yield-bearing securities viewed as digital credit

Strive’s SATA product is part of a growing class of yield-bearing securities tied to corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies, an asset class that issuers are describing as “digital credit.”

Strategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, currently offers multiple preferred securities tied to its Bitcoin-focused capital structure, including Stretch (STRC), Stride (STRD), Strife (STRF) and Strike (STRK).

STRC has emerged as the dominant Bitcoin-linked preferred security issued by the company. Launched in July 2025, the security currently carries a variable dividend yield of about 11.5%, according to company data. Shareholders will vote next week on a proxy proposal to pay dividends on the shares twice a month.

Earlier this month, STRC recorded a record $1.53 billion in daily trading volume, with chairman Michael Saylor describing the product as Strategy’s primary vehicle for funding Bitcoin purchases in 2026.

SATA currently has a market capitalization of about $332 million, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net data, compared with more than $10 billion for Strategy’s STRC.

Speaking Tuesday on the Coin Stories podcast, Strive Chief Risk Officer Jeff Walton said BTC-backed securities could reshape traditional financial markets and credit systems.

“You can start to rethink and reimagine what money looks like, reimagine what credit looks like,” Walton said, adding that the idea was “so simple it seems like it shouldn’t work,” which he said contributes to skepticism around the emerging sector.

Jeff Walton speaking with Natalie Brunell.
Source: Coin Stories

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The Ether buying company Bitmine Immersion Technologies has made its biggest purchase so far in 2026 as its chairman, Tom Lee, doubled down on the idea of an impending crypto supercycle.

Lee said Tuesday that in the past week, Bitmine bought 111,942 Ether (ETH) after a recent pullback sent the token below $2,200 and presented an “attractive opportunity.” Ether has traded between $2,025 and $2,147 over the past seven days.

He also reiterated his theory of a supercycle ahead for crypto and Ether, driven by Wall Street’s interest in tokenization and artificial intelligence-powered agents.

“We continue to expect a supercycle ahead for crypto and Ethereum, driven by the dual drivers of Wall Street tokenization and agentic AI. And thus, we continue to steadily acquire ETH, with Bitmine now owning nearly 5.4 million ETH tokens,” Lee said.

Source: Bitmine

Bitmine slowed its pace of Ether buys earlier this month after having scooped up over 100,000 ETH a week for three straight weeks. It is the largest Ether treasury company and has consistently bought crypto, even during market downturns, following a business model similar to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy.

Bitmine’s goal is to hold 5% of Ether’s circulating supply of 120.7 million tokens. To reach its target of more than 6 million ETH, Bitmine needs about 644,596 ETH, which Lee said will happen sometime this year.

Ether treasury firms leaning into staking

Bitmine has staked over $4.7 million of its Ether, according to the company, and expects to generate annualized staking revenues of $276 million.

Related: Bitmine’s Tom Lee hints at stock tailwinds after firm considered for Russell 3000

Staking infrastructure provider Everstake said in a report Tuesday that Ether treasury companies are under pressure to generate revenue from staking and other yield strategies as the appeal of public companies just holding the asset has been weakened by interest in spot crypto exchange-traded funds.

Across the wider ecosystem, the amount of staked Ether has hit a new high, with more than 39.2 million, or roughly 32.19% of the supply, locked in and another 3.3 million waiting in the wings, according to the Ethereum Validator Queue. At the same time, the exit queue has about 234,368 Ether waiting to leave.

Over 39.2 million Ether is currently staked. Source: Ethereum Validator Queue

Ether reached an all-time high of $4,946 in August 2025 but has since fallen over 58%. Lee previously argued that Ether’s steep drawdowns may offer a buying opportunity.

Magazine: Polymarket seeks Japan entry, Harvard dumps entire ETH position: Hodler’s Digest, May 17 – 23  

The pope has used his first encyclical to issue an unusually blunt warning on artificial intelligence, saying AI must be “disarmed” and stripped of the logics that turn it into a tool of domination, manipulation, and automated killing.

In a landmark document released on May 25, Pope Leo XIV presented Magnifica Humanitas, the first major teaching text of his papacy and a sweeping manifesto on AI, technology, and human dignity. He writes that artificial intelligence must now be “disarmed, liberated from logics that transform it into a tool for domination, exclusion, and destruction,” and pointedly compares AI to nuclear power—something that can serve everyone but, left unchecked, can also annihilate entire societies.

The encyclical warns that a global “competition for increasingly powerful algorithms and expansive datasets,” driven by geopolitical rivalry and commercial greed, is pushing humanity toward systems that optimize for control rather than care. In that race, he argues, AI has already begun to deepen global conflicts by accelerating misinformation, amplifying polarisation and lowering the psychological threshold for war when lethal decisions are delegated to code.

“No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human”

Pope Leo’s harshest language is reserved for AI in warfare and state power. Echoing earlier Vatican documents under Pope Francis, he condemns Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems that can “identify and strike targets without direct human intervention,” calling them a “cause for grave ethical concern” and insisting it is “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to machines.

Previous Vatican teaching on AI, including the note Antiqua et Nova and Francis’s World Day of Peace message on “Artificial Intelligence and Peace,” already framed autonomous weapons as an “existential risk” that could threaten the survival of entire regions or even humanity itself. Leo explicitly builds on that line, stating that “no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” and calling for international law to ban systems that act as de facto automated executioners on the battlefield or in policing.

The encyclical also targets what he describes as AI-driven “new forms of slavery,” from opaque algorithmic management of workers to exploitative surveillance and deepfake pornography that strip people of control over their image and identity. These dynamics, he warns, risk creating a tiered society in which those who design and own AI systems exert unprecedented power over those who are merely measured, scored, or simulated by them.

A call to slow down—and to regulate hard

Leo’s message is not a blanket rejection of technology, but a demand that AI development be subordinated to human dignity and democratic control rather than the other way around. The encyclical calls for “strong legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users, and a political environment that does not relinquish its obligations,” warning that governments cannot simply outsource responsibility to engineers or platform CEOs.

He urges world leaders to “slow down” the AI arms race, particularly in domains such as military systems, mass surveillance, and political manipulation, where the incentives to deploy harmful capabilities are strongest. At the same time, he acknowledges AI’s “immense potential” in medicine and social welfare so long as it remains a tool that complements human judgment instead of replacing doctor‑patient relationships or eroding face‑to‑face solidarity in moments of illness and vulnerability.

Micron Technology has reportedly joined the trillion‑dollar club after an 18% single‑day surge sent its shares to around $886, capping a year‑to‑date run of more than 200% on the back of an AI‑driven memory boom.

The speed of the move has turned Micron into one of the surprise winners of the AI hardware cycle. One Globe and Mail column noted the stock was already up nearly 700% over 12 months with a market cap “just under $850 billion” before this latest lurch higher, calling it a candidate to “join the trillion‑dollar club” on the back of its locked‑in HBM orders. Another analysis at Barchart in February flagged that MU had risen about 242% over six months yet was still trading at roughly 12.5 times forward earnings, with a highest 12‑month price target of $500 at the time—a level the stock has already blown past.