Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has announced the successful completion of the first cryptocurrency transaction managed entirely by artificial intelligence (AI). In a recent post on X, the cryptocurrency chief shared the news that AI bots completed the transaction without human intervention.
The transaction involved one AI agent, essentially a bot designed to perform specific tasks, using cryptocurrency tokens to interact with another AI agent.
The goal of the AI-to-AI transaction was to acquire AI tokens – strings of data that allow algorithms to learn and adapt to new information. “They used the tokens to buy tokens,” – Armstrong wrote.
He also pointed out that one of the main obstacles for AI agents today is their inability to conduct transactions.
Without the ability to make payments, these AI systems struggle with routine tasks such as booking travel or managing social media activities beyond content creation.
“AI agents can’t get bank accounts, but they can get cryptocurrency wallets.” – Armstrong noted, adding that these AI-based transactions on Coinbase’s Base platform are instant, global and free.
“This is an important step toward AI doing useful work. Today, if you outsource a task to an AI agent and come back in a few days or hours, it can’t do useful work.”
The development is part of a broader trend in the cryptocurrency industry to equip AI agents with transaction functions. Earlier this month, Skyfire, a blockchain development company, launched a payment platform that allows AI agents to autonomously manage and spend money.
Similarly, infrastructure company Web3 Biconomy is integrating AI agents to enable blockchain transactions, offering a new authorization layer that allows users to delegate trading activities to AI.
AI agents should have cryptocurrency wallets
Last week, Armstrong suggested integrating large-scale language models (LLMs) – the technology behind AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT – into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He argued that allowing AI agents to hold cryptocurrency wallets could greatly increase their utility, enabling them to participate in the economy on behalf of humans.
Last June, Coinbase published a research report stating that the combination of artificial intelligence and blockchain represents a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs.
At the time, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange highlighted the benefits of combining the two technologies to create new solutions to social challenges posed by AI.
“As AI and blockchain applications mature, the disruption these technologies represent could lead to areas of collaboration and the emergence of new use cases for cryptocurrencies to help solve specific social challenges posed by AI , ” said David Duong, head of research at Coinbase.
The report mentions several potential use cases that combine AI and blockchain technology. First, it said that decentralized data markets could help generative AI meet the need for a validated and diverse set of data to train its models.
Similarly, token-based incentive mechanisms can improve the quality of data from these markets.
Other use cases include providing computing power from decentralized networks that use graph processing units for AI projects to train their models, improving the authenticity of the data and making the AI algorithm’s opaque decision-making process more auditable.
