payments

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.

According to Ambcrypto, Coinbase has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to jointly launch a new payment layer that allows AI Agents to autonomously make micro-payments using USDC.The solution integrates Coinbase's wallet infrastructure and the x402 payment protocol into Amazon Bedrock's AgentCore Payments system. Developers can build AI agents that autonomously discover services, pay on demand, and complete tasks without human intervention.Reports indicate that the x402 protocol is based on the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" standard, with transactions completed in about 200 milliseconds at a cost of just a fraction of a cent, supporting high-frequency low-value machine-native payments. The system also includes enterprise-level budget control and compliance tools.

According to The Block, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has partnered with Coinbase and Stripe to launch Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments, enabling AI agents to complete transactions using stablecoins.Coinbase stated that developers can build "agent-based payment" solutions based on the x402 protocol, allowing AI agents to make small payments using USDC. This feature enables AI agents to make instant payments for web content, APIs, MCP servers, and other agents. AWS noted that developers can choose between Coinbase or Stripe wallets and recharge their wallets using stablecoins or fiat currency.

During the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, the "RWA & Payments 2026" summit, co-hosted by StableStock, Mask, and BenPay, was held in Hong Kong, with MYBX invited as an official partner.According to reports, the MYBX team communicated with institutions such as Bitget Wallet, Cobo, Aleo, Conflux, and CREGIS during the summit regarding RWA asset clearing, payment protocol interoperability, and trading infrastructure, and discussed topics such as high-concurrency matching, atomic clearing, and on-chain payments in conjunction with the MYBX 2.0 trading system.

With the implementation of new payment regulations, the demand for bank payments has become a necessity for all Web3 users. GANA Payment announced that its token will soon be fully integrated into the payment ecosystem, positioning itself as the core governance token in the entire Web3 payment ecosystem.GANA will upgrade from a single functional attribute to a key hub connecting payments, scenarios, and governance mechanisms, promoting the widespread application of the token in real use cases.GANA Payment is accelerating its entry into a Web3 large payment ecosystem phase oriented towards real consumption and value circulation.

One of South Korea's largest credit card companies, Shinhan Card, announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with the Solana Foundation to jointly build a stablecoin payment system on the Solana blockchain.As part of the collaboration, Shinhan Card is conducting a high-level proof of concept this year, focusing on simulating real-world payment scenarios between customers and merchants on the Solana testnet. Shinhan Card's Executive Vice President Kim Young-il stated, "Based on Solana, we plan to carefully examine the practical applicability of blockchain technology and actively explore next-generation financial models." One of the core elements of the proof of concept is to verify the security and stability of non-custodial wallets, so that Shinhan Card can deploy this technology on a large scale in the future. Both parties will also explore a "hybrid financial model" that combines the reliability of traditional finance with the efficiency of DeFi. Shinhan Card plans to utilize oracle technology to build its own DeFi service environment, deploying smart contracts while ensuring operational stability. Shinhan Card will assess the outcomes of these projects in conjunction with the evolving regulatory environment in South Korea and the Asia-Pacific region. Notably, South Korean lawmakers are currently drafting the "Basic Law on Digital Assets," which is expected to be finalized within this year. Under the anticipated legislation, several South Korean financial institutions, including KBank, have recently begun collaborating with global blockchain and cryptocurrency companies.

According to The Block, Visa has partnered with WeFi, a "on-chain bank" company founded by former Tether CEO Reeve Collins, allowing users to hold digital assets through self-custody wallets while directly spending within the global Visa acceptance network, without the need to custody assets in centralized exchanges.Maksym Sakharov, co-founder and CEO of WeFi, stated that stablecoins are directly embedded in the underlying infrastructure, with settlements automatically completed in the background, providing a user experience similar to regular payments. This collaboration will initially roll out in certain markets in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with further expansion depending on regulatory approval progress.

AI Smart Routing and Infrastructure Network DGrid AI officially announces the launch of its AI inference API integrated with the x402 payment protocol. This API seamlessly merges payment logic with AI model invocation for the first time, allowing developers and AI Agents to complete authorization, inference, and payment within a single API request lifecycle without managing cumbersome API Keys or requiring centralized account pre-funding.It is reported that this API currently supports BNB Chain (BSC) as the underlying settlement network. With the micropayment features of the x402 protocol, the system can achieve extremely low-friction on-chain real-time settlement while ensuring that invocation costs remain absolutely controllable. Additionally, this API supports streaming responses and real-time usage feedback while being compatible with mainstream AI invocation methods, making it suitable for various application scenarios, including model selection for AI Agents, inference billing, intelligent agents, and multi-task execution.DGrid states that this initiative aims to completely break the prepaid barriers of traditional large model invocation and provide a programmable underlying payment infrastructure for building a fully automated AI Agent economy (machine-to-machine transactions).

Chief Economist Fu Peng of New Fire Group delivered a speech at the 2026 Hong Kong Institutional Digital Wealth Management Summit, stating that the integration of traditional financial institutions and the cryptocurrency market will herald the arrival of a new era in the market. The participants who will truly succeed in the future are those who can quickly complete their transformation at critical turning points.Fu Peng cited the Cold War, oil crisis, and the simultaneous rise of computer and semiconductor technology in the 1970s and 1980s as examples, pointing out that technological advancements and global order turmoil often go hand in hand, with risks and opportunities always accompanying each other. He believes that AI and data computing power are now widely recognized as the core productive forces of the next era, indicating that the first half of the cryptocurrency industry has essentially ended, and the industry is at a critical stage of reconstruction and rebirth.Looking ahead, Fu Peng predicts that stablecoins will take on payment functions, Bitcoin will evolve into a core asset with both value storage and financial transaction attributes, and a brand new chapter of the era is about to begin.

According to CoinDesk, Kraken stated that it has submitted 56 million cryptocurrency transaction tax forms to the IRS for the 2025 tax year, of which approximately 18.5 million correspond to amounts below $1, 74% are below $50, and only 8.5% exceed $600.Kraken pointed out that the lack of a minimum amount tax exemption rule for cryptocurrency payments, as well as the taxation of staking rewards as ordinary income at the time of receipt, is placing a heavy reporting burden on investors. Kraken is calling on the U.S. Congress to promote a broader minimum amount tax exemption policy linked to inflation and to allow taxpayers to choose to be taxed on staking rewards at the time of receipt or sale.

According to market news, Ramp, supported by top Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, will allow payments and consumption through Plasma using stablecoin channels.

The UK Treasury announced a regulatory scheme during London Fintech Week, planning to incorporate stablecoins and tokenized deposits into a unified regulatory framework with traditional payment services.The scheme aims to regulate stablecoins used for payments under the upcoming issuance regime, while expanding the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) regulatory scope over open banking, and exploring regulatory adjustments for payment activities executed by AI agents. The proposal also suggests reducing administrative requirements for businesses providing stablecoin payment services through new legislation.The UK Treasury also announced the appointment of EY partner and former interim CEO of the FCA, Chris Woolard CBE, as the wholesale digital market champion, responsible for advancing the development of a tokenized wholesale financial system, and committed to providing £1 million (approximately $1.35 million) in funding support to the Centre for Financial Innovation and Technology starting in April. Minister for Cities Lucy Rigby stated that the scheme aims to build a secure, competitive payment ecosystem that can seize opportunities from technological changes. The UK government recognizes the transformative potential of digital assets and blockchain technology, believing they can reshape the way consumers and businesses interact with financial services.