Coinbase Launches Payments MCP for AI Payments

Coinbase has launched Payments MCP, a Model Context Protocol that lets AI agents — including Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s Codex — create wallets, sign in (including via email), fund accounts and send on-chain stablecoin payments through natural-language prompts without traditional API keys. Built on Coinbase’s x402 payment standard, the system includes onramps, guest checkout in supported regions and an integrated x402 Bazaar Explorer to discover payable APIs and services. Payments MCP runs locally for speed and privacy and can be customized per agent, letting machines autonomously pay for compute, retrieve paywalled data, tip creators or manage lightweight business operations. Coinbase and partners via the x402 Foundation present the launch as a move toward agentic commerce, arguing stablecoins and crypto rails provide open, programmatic payment infrastructure for intelligent agents. The launch aims to bridge large language models with decentralized finance and simplify developer integration of crypto payments into AI applications.