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Brian Armstrong’s Bold Prediction: AI Agents Will Soon Dominate Global Financial

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Brian Armstrong's Bold Prediction: AI Agents Will Soon Dominate Global Financial

TLDR:

  • Brian Armstrong says AI agents cannot open bank accounts but can hold crypto wallets.
  • Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets via the x402 protocol for fast AI-to-AI payments.
  • Wallets enable gasless trading on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.
  • Mastercard and crypto firms build solutions to support AI agent commerce.

Brian Armstrong’s AI agents and crypto wallets discussion gained attention after the Coinbase CEO highlighted that autonomous AI programs will soon dominate financial transactions.

Armstrong stated that AI agents cannot open bank accounts, but they can generate crypto wallets and transact globally.

Coinbase Launches Agentic Wallets for Machine Transactions

On March 9, Brian Armstrong posted on X explaining that AI agents will soon outnumber humans in financial activity. He argued that traditional banks cannot serve AI because of the Know Your Customer requirements.

AI agents require payment capabilities to execute assigned tasks autonomously. Without bank accounts, agents cannot pay for services like server hosting or software tools.

Coinbase introduced Agentic Wallets on February 11, 2026, via its x402 protocol. The protocol is designed for machine-to-machine payments and has processed over 50 million transactions by the time of Armstrong’s post.

The wallets can be created and funded quickly through Coinbase developer tools. They also allow gasless trading on Base, Coinbase’s layer‑2 network built on Ethereum.

Armstrong emphasized that AI agents can own crypto wallets immediately, bypassing the human identity verification barrier. This capability positions crypto as a natural infrastructure for the coming machine economy.

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Other crypto leaders have shared similar views on AI-driven financial activity. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao predicted that AI agents will produce millions of times more transactions than humans.

Industry Prepares for AI Agent Commerce

Traditional financial companies are developing systems to accommodate agent-driven transactions. Mastercard launched Verifiable Intent, a framework co-developed with Google, to track AI purchases securely.

The system creates a cryptographic record linking the consumer’s authorization, the AI agent’s action, and the transaction. It uses selective disclosure to share only the necessary information with merchants and issuers.

Meanwhile, crypto platforms continue to expand blockchain-based payment rails for AI agents. EigenCloud partnered with Google Cloud to serve as a verifiable backbone for agent transactions.

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The Ethereum Foundation also established the dAI Team to make Ethereum a preferred settlement layer for machine-driven commerce.

These efforts illustrate two approaches: traditional finance builds trust layers, while crypto platforms provide blockchain-native solutions.

Taken together, these developments indicate that AI agents are likely to rely on crypto wallets for autonomous transactions.

Coinbase’s Agentic Wallets and blockchain infrastructure offer immediate solutions for machine-to-machine financial operations.

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Crypto World

Ripple targets Australian financial services license with latest acquisition

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Ripple targets Australian financial services license with latest acquisition

Ripple has announced plans to secure an Australian financial services license by acquiring a local payments firm in the country.

Summary

  • Ripple plans to obtain an Australian Financial Services License through the acquisition of BC Payments Australia.
  • New regulations set to take effect by June 30, 2026, would require crypto companies operating in Australia to obtain a license.

Ripple said it will obtain the AFSL license through the acquisition of BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, a payments company linked to the European Banking Circle Group. A deal is still underway and is expected to close on April 1 after the standard closing process is finalized.

“Australia is a key market for Ripple,” Ripple’s APAC Managing Director Fiona Murray said in an accompanying statement, adding that it will help Ripple Payments “manage the full lifecycle of a transaction, from onboarding and compliance through funding, FX, liquidity management, and final payout, while integrating both traditional banking rails and digital assets.”

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Ripple’s decision to pursue the license comes as Australia’s financial regulator has unveiled updated regulations for the country’s crypto sector.

Starting June 30, 2026, crypto firms operating in Australia would be required to obtain an Australian Financial Services License before they are allowed to offer certain financial services to local customers.

Over the past years, Ripple has expanded its global regulatory footprint by focusing on securing licenses across key markets around the world.

In 2025 alone, Ripple managed to secure payment licenses in Singapore, the UAE, and the UK. The company was also granted conditional approval for a national trust banking charter by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency alongside a handful of other firms.

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Securing these regulatory approvals has helped Ripple strengthen its push for broader institutional adoption of the XRP (XRP) ecosystem and its flagship stablecoin RLUSD.

As previously reported by crypto.news, Ripple became one of the world’s top most valuable private companies, with its valuation reaching roughly $50 billion.

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Crypto is Just Finance on Different Infrastructure: ASIC

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Crypto is Just Finance on Different Infrastructure: ASIC

Blockchain and crypto are technologies performing the same functions as existing financial infrastructure, so they shouldn’t be treated as separate asset classes when crafting legislation, according to the fintech chief of Australia’s securities regulator.

In a paper presented at the Melbourne Money & Finance Conference on Wednesday, Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) head of fintech, Rhys Bollen, said crypto should be regulated on “economic substance rather than technological form.”

Tokenized securities should fall within securities laws, and stablecoins should trigger payment services legislation, Bollen said, while noting that other elements of crypto may be subject to consumer protection laws.

Bollen’s approach contrasts with crypto-specific regulatory frameworks in other countries, such as the CLARITY Act in the US and the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation framework in Europe.

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Bollen argued that the three main financial functions — capital allocation, payments and risk management — have evolved with technological advancements and that distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchain, shouldn’t be treated differently:

“Digital assets largely represent new technological instances of longstanding financial activities. While the mechanisms of issuance, transfer and record-keeping have changed, the underlying economic functions served by these instruments have not.”

“Regulatory systems have repeatedly adapted to technological change – from paper instruments to electronic records – without abandoning foundational principles such as consumer protection, market integrity and systemic stability,” Bollen added.

Australia isn’t crafting one big crypto bill

Australia is already starting to adopt this approach, with the main piece of crypto legislation, the Digital Asset Framework bill, seeking to merely amend parts of the Corporations Act, Bollen said.

“The Bill does not abandon the existing financial services framework. Instead, it introduces tailored amendments that integrate digital asset platforms into the established regulatory architecture.”

The Australian crypto market has also been given guidance through ASIC Information Sheet 225, which states that existing definitions of “financial product” and “financial service” under the Corporations Act can apply to digital assets.

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