AI-powered payments have reached $73 million across 176 million transactions, nearly all settled in the stablecoin USDC. But the crypto market maker Keyrock is warning that this rapid shift toward agentic AI in finance carries hidden dangers tied to the same stablecoins enabling the boom.
$73M in AI Payments — and Counting
The numbers come from aggregate transaction data covering automated payments executed by artificial intelligence agents. These systems — software that can initiate and settle payments without human intervention — have overwhelmingly chosen USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle. The volume, spread over 176 million transactions, represents a significant slice of real-world AI adoption in finance. But the reliance on a single type of asset has drawn scrutiny.
Why Keyrock Sees Risk
Keyrock, a firm that provides liquidity and market-making services, has cautioned that agentic AI's dependence on stablecoins introduces a layer of fragility. The company points to the inherent risks in any system where automated agents rely on assets whose peg to the dollar depends on market confidence and issuer solvency. A sudden loss of confidence in a stablecoin could trigger a cascade of automated sell orders or freeze payments — exactly the kind of event that agentic AI, by design, is not built to navigate.
The warning is notable because Keyrock itself operates in the digital asset space. The firm's analysis suggests that as more AI agents handle payments, their exposure to stablecoin-specific risks grows in parallel. Yet the current infrastructure offers few safeguards against a scenario where the underlying asset wobbles.
The sector shows no signs of slowing. The $73 million figure, while small compared to traditional payment volumes, marks a rapid uptick in machine-to-machine transactions. But Keyrock's caution leaves an open question: how do you secure a payment system that runs on AI agents when the foundation — the stablecoin — carries its own unresolved risks? For now, the industry appears to be prioritizing speed and convenience over resilience.
