payments

Visa has invested in the AI programming platform Replit to promote the development of agentic payments and explore how developers and AI agents can directly receive payments within the platform.

According to CoinDesk, the latest research from Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), shows that tokenization technology is expected to significantly improve settlement speed and reconciliation efficiency in cross-border payments, while reducing transaction failures and operational risks.The project involves BIS collaborating with seven central banks and over 40 financial institutions, including the New York Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and Swiss National Bank. The research suggests that tokenizing central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits can support "atomic settlement" across currencies and jurisdictions, allowing transactions to "either complete simultaneously or fail simultaneously," thereby reducing the credit and execution risks commonly associated with cross-border payments.Currently, Project Agorá has completed the simulation testing phase and plans to enter the "real-value" trading testing phase to explore on-chain settlement applications for certain currencies and institutions in a real funds environment.

According to official news, FTX announced that the expected registration date for the next round of payouts is set for June 16, 2026, aimed at users holding approved FTX claims and equity. The next round of payouts is expected to begin on July 31, 2026. The next payment for preferred shareholders will also be made on the same day, with the registration date being June 16.Approved NFT customer equity claim holders can begin the NFT allocation process on June 30, 2026. FTX has also submitted a modification notice proposing to reduce the disputed claims reserve by approximately $600 million. Upon court approval, the released cash will be used for the next distribution.

The crypto market maker Keyrock, in collaboration with Coinbase, Tempo, and Virtuals Protocol, released the report "Who Pays the Agent?" which states that AI Agents are rapidly becoming important participants in the on-chain economy. Data shows that from May 2025 to April 2026, AI Agents have completed approximately 176 million on-chain transactions, with a total settlement amount exceeding $73 million. The report points out that the average payment amount per transaction for AI Agents is only between $0.31 and $0.48, indicating that a machine-native micropayment economy is forming. About 76% of the transaction amounts are below the Visa fixed fee threshold of $0.30, making it difficult for traditional bank cards and banking payment systems to adapt to the high-frequency, small, autonomous payment needs of AI.Data shows that 98.6% of AI Agent payments are settled in USDC. As of Q1 2026, more than 104,000 AI Agents have completed registration. The report states that on the Base network, the cost of a USDC transfer is about $0.0001, accounting for approximately 0.03% of the $0.31 transaction amount, which presents a significant cost advantage compared to traditional payment systems. The report believes that stablecoins are gradually becoming the "default currency infrastructure" for economic activities between AI and machines. However, Keyrock also warns that the current AI payment ecosystem's high dependence on USDC poses a centralization risk, meaning that the entire emerging AI payment system largely relies on the regulation and infrastructure stability of a single stablecoin issuer.In addition, several technology and payment companies have begun to lay out AI Agent payment infrastructure, including the x402 protocol launched by Coinbase, the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) launched by Stripe and Tempo, Google's AP2 delegated payment system, and Visa's expanded tokenized payment voucher service. The report also points out that the current regulatory frameworks, including the European MiCA Act, the U.S. GENIUS Act, and the EU AI Act, still lack comprehensive regulatory standards for autonomous financial transactions and payment behaviors between machines.

On-chain detective ZachXBT posted on his personal channel, stating that on-chain tracking analysis shows that in two investment plans related to Gurhan Kiziloz, there are signs of at least approximately $25 million in presale funds being used interchangeably, which were transferred to pay for promotions to KOLs and streamers, involving his online gambling platform.ZachXBT indicated that the fundraising materials for the related presale projects BlockDAG Network and ZKP did not disclose that the funds would be used to support other businesses, while on-chain data shows that the funds were pooled across multiple addresses and then transferred to exchanges through cross-chain bridges, flowing to promotional payment addresses.ZachXBT also named several related addresses, including the Spartans KOL payment address and the BlockDAG / ZKP presale wallet, and advised investors to stay away from the BlockDAG, ZKP, and Spartans projects. Retail investors are still continuously complaining about the related fund usage issues on social media.

According to CoinDesk, the stablecoin payment blockchain Tempo, supported by Stripe and Paradigm, is integrating Morpho's $7.5 billion DeFi lending market to provide on-chain lending and yield products for fintech companies and enterprises built on it. This integration allows Tempo users to access one of the largest lending protocols in DeFi, transforming stablecoin balances from idle assets into interest-bearing assets.Previously, Tempo was primarily positioned as a funds transfer blockchain, providing enterprises with stablecoin transfer, foreign exchange, and settlement tools. The addition of Morpho expands it into a more complete financial stack.

According to Bloomberg, multinational commodity trading firm Trafigura Group is in discussions with Tether about a pilot project aimed at using the stablecoin USDT for payments at fuel stations in El Salvador. The pilot will focus on gas stations operated by Puma Energy, Trafigura's fuel distribution division, where consumers in El Salvador can pay for fuel or snacks using USDT, which will then be converted to dollars by an intermediary and transferred to Trafigura. The discussions are still in the early stages and require regulatory approval.A spokesperson for Puma Energy stated that the discussions are still in the exploratory technical phase. This is the first known collaboration involving the use of stablecoins between Tether and a major commodity trader. Tether previously indicated that it funded an oil transaction but did not disclose specific details. Tether's CEO stated last November that they plan to "significantly" expand their lending business to commodity traders, having already issued $1.5 billion in loans.

KB Financial Group announced that it has completed the technical proof of concept for the Korean won stablecoin in scenarios such as payments, settlements, and international remittances. This verification was jointly completed by KB Financial Group, electronic payment company KG Inicis, public chain Kaia, and digital asset solution company OpenAsset, covering the entire financial service process including the issuance of the Korean won stablecoin, offline payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border remittances.According to reports, the solution migrates the internal settlement system to a blockchain architecture while maintaining users' original financial service habits. Among them, actual payment scenarios have been tested through the offline self-service terminals of the chain coffee brand Hollys, allowing users to make payments via QR codes without the need to install a digital wallet; the system automatically executes on-chain smart contracts during the settlement phase. In addition, in the cross-border remittance test, the system first exchanges the Korean won stablecoin for US dollar stablecoins through Kaia's on-chain liquidity, and then the local partner in Vietnam completes the fiat currency crediting. The entire remittance process takes only about 3 minutes, with fees reduced by approximately 87% compared to traditional SWIFT remittance models.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, members of the Block team revealed that the company's Square has automatically enabled Bitcoin payment functionality for approximately 1 million U.S. merchants, allowing customers to pay with Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, while merchants settle in USD, with real-time conversion handled in the backend.This feature has been available by default to eligible U.S. sellers since March 30, with a new merchant being activated every 8 seconds at peak times. Miles Suter, Block's Bitcoin product lead, stated that Bitcoin must circulate rather than sit idle, or it will lose its transformative value as peer-to-peer cash.

Base co-founder Jesse stated that the x402 protocol now supports batch settlement, enabling a large number of small payments, with individual transactions as low as below 0.0001 USD, making it very suitable for on-demand payment calculations and instant resources such as inference.

According to the official announcement, Circle has launched a new infrastructure suite for the "Agentic Economy," called Circle Agent Stack, which includes products such as Circle CLI, Agent Wallets, Agent Marketplace, and Nanopayments based on Circle Gateway, supporting AI agents as autonomous economic entities for asset holding, service discovery, and on-chain payments.Among them, Nanopayments supports gas-free USDC transfers at a minimum level of $0.000001, aimed at high-frequency machine-to-machine payment scenarios; Agent Wallets allow AI agents to autonomously manage funds under preset permissions and risk control frameworks; Agent Marketplace provides an AI service directory, enabling agents to automatically discover and invoke services.Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that traditional financial infrastructure is designed for "humans," while the future global economy will increasingly be driven by AI and agents. The Circle Agent Stack is the first complete product suite launched for "AI agents themselves" rather than developers.

Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Mysten Labs, posted on the X platform that confidential transactions will be launched on the Sui network this year, enabling large-scale, free, and privacy-protected payments.