Cloudflare announced plans to introduce a new stablecoin called NET Dollar to power agentic commerce. The company says that its new USD-backed coin “will help power a new business model for the Internet that rewards originality, sustains creativity, and enables innovation in an AI-driven world.”
Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Princes said:
“For decades, the business model of the Internet ran on ad platforms and bank transfers. The Internet’s next business model will be powered by pay-per-use, fractional payments, and microtransactions—tools that shift incentives toward original, creative content that actually adds value. By using our global network, we are going to help modernize the financial rails needed to move money at the speed of the Internet, helping to create a more open and valuable Internet for everyone.”
In July I reported that Cloudflare was experimenting with a “pay-per-crawl” tool that allows content creators to charge a fee to AI crawlers to scrape their websites. The beta tool enables publishers to set their own prices that bots must pay before scraping content as well as choose which bots can access specific areas of their websites. Cloudflare shared at the time that it is acting as the Merchant of Record for the service in addition to the underlying technical infrastructure.
I assume that this NET Dollar stablecoin is being launched to complement Cloudflare's pay-per-crawl efforts. Why exclusively work with other stablecoins as payments when you can also benefit from launching your own?
In June, after the U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan GENIUS Act to establish a federal regulatory framework for USD‑pegged stablecoins, I wrote that stablecoins were having a moment, and it isn't going to end well.
My issue is that rather than banks, fintechs, AI companies, and the U.S. government collectively working towards updating our archaic ACH and SWIFT payment rails, we're allowing major institutions to build a private layer on top of it. Privately issued stablecoins are not the solution to modernizing our financial digital infrastructure. Instant, low-cost settlements are completely possible directly using USD if payments weren't running on a system BUILT IN 1972! However my opinion on stablecoins is neither here nor there.
If anyone has a shot at launching a globally utilized stablecoin to power agentic commerce — it's Cloudflare.
The service already powers an estimated 20% of websites on the Internet including a third of the web's biggest 10,000 sites globally. Talk about instant adoption! No other tech company on the planet comes close to Cloudflare's reach in terms of network distribution, request volume handled, and ubiquity across every industry vertical online.
I support the mission of facilitating micro-transactions on a global level and wish them luck — even if we have to use stablecoins to get there.
