AI-Driven Payments to Fuel Stablecoin Growth Despite Limited Current Adoption: Bernstein Analysis
Analyst firm Bernstein projects that autonomous AI payment systems will drive future stablecoin usage, though present machine-driven transaction volumes are minimal and subject to debate.
According to Bernstein, payments facilitated by agentic artificial intelligence represent a significant long-term opportunity for expanding stablecoin usage, despite current adoption levels on machine-payment systems remaining modest and not yet significant enough to fundamentally alter the investment thesis for stablecoins in the broader market.
Through a Monday research note provided to Cointelegraph, the brokerage firm explained that stablecoins have the potential to facilitate machine-to-machine payment systems by enabling microtransaction feasibility and supporting programmable, condition-based payments between autonomous software agents that operate independently of human intervention.
However, Bernstein acknowledged that adoption levels thus far have been constrained. According to the note, Stripe and Tempo's machine payments protocol generated approximately $5,000 in stablecoin transaction volume during its initial week of operation, while Coinbase's x402 protocol processed no greater than $25 million throughout the previous 30-day period. Bernstein's analysis positioned x402 volume at roughly $24 million during that timeframe. x402 represents a payment standard created by Coinbase that enables AI agents to execute automated payments across internet networks.
The more significant takeaway for Bernstein centered on the fact that stablecoins are not dependent on machine payment adoption to maintain their growth trajectory. The research note emphasized that stablecoin demand is currently being propelled by international business payment transfers, remittance services, card-linked financial products and neobanking solutions, positioning AI-driven payments as a beneficial additional factor rather than the fundamental growth driver.
The analysis arrives amid increasing attention toward autonomous payment technologies. Last Thursday, Visa's cryptocurrency division unveiled a tool that provides AI agents with the capability to execute same-day payment transactions on the identical day that Stripe-backed Tempo introduced its blockchain infrastructure and payment protocol.
Bernstein maintained that more established payment applications continue to serve as the primary expansion mechanism for stablecoins. The firm's analysis calculated that aggregate stablecoin payment volume increased to $375 billion during 2025 from $213 billion recorded in 2024, with consumer-to-consumer transactions leading the way, while business-to-consumer, business-to-business and consumer-to-business transaction categories also experienced growth.
Coinbase, Circle remain best "proxies" for stablecoin adoption
Digital asset exchange Coinbase and stablecoin provider Circle continue to represent the "best proxies for stablecoin upside" owing to their USDC collaboration, according to Bernstein's assessment.
The firm further contended that USDC stands positioned to secure a controlling portion of machine-payment transaction activity given that it represents the most liquid and comprehensively regulated stablecoin among viable alternatives.
Through the first months of 2026, USDC has logged $2.4 trillion in adjusted transaction volume while Tether's USDt (USDT) has registered $1.4 trillion.
Wash trading concerns cloud early metrics
Certain prominent machine-payment figures have already attracted considerable doubt from industry observers.
Payment volume attributed to AI Agents on x402 totaled merely $1.6 million following the application of the wash trading filter created by Artemis Analytics, representing a substantially smaller figure than the original $24 million figure published by news organization Bloomberg, according to a16z partner Noah Levine.
"$1.6 million is not a big number. But the infrastructure being built around it is," wrote Levine in a March 11 X post, adding that x402 was already integrated by the likes of Stripe, Cloudflare, Vercel and Google's agent payments protocol.