Coinbase races to build an AI agent payment infrastructure and eyes stablecoin deal with Cloudflare

Coinbase is moving to build infrastructure for AI agent payments, including a payments protocol called x402, a marketplace, and wallets for agents, while also competing with crypto infrastructure startup Zerohash to issue a new stablecoin for Cloudflare that could put the winner at the center of agent-based web traffic. The push comes as Coinbase's core crypto brokerage struggles, with shares down 50% from their 2025 peak and a $667M loss last quarter, pushing the company to diversify into equities, prediction markets, and now agentic payments. Competition is already emerging, with Stripe announcing its own agent payments protocol co-developed with stablecoin blockchain Tempo, while total real-activity payments on Coinbase's x402 protocol have reached just $33.7M since launching last October.