BeInCrypto Lists 10 Firms for Autonomous Agentic Payments Award

BeInCrypto Lists 10 Firms for Autonomous Agentic Payments Award – Research Highlights Emerging On-Chain AI Payment Infrastructure

Key Takeaways

BeInCrypto named 10 firms to the 2026 long list for Autonomous Agentic Payments under its Institutional 100 program.
The category evaluates AI agents that can hold assets, access wallets, sign transactions, and settle payments on crypto rails.
Assessment is based on 30% quantitative data, 50% Expert Council scoring, and 20% disclosed company data.
The shortlisted firms span stablecoin stacks, protocol layers, identity standards, settlement infrastructure, and agentic onramps.
A winner will be announced at Proof of Talk in Paris on June 2-3, 2026.

BeInCrypto Institutional 100 Introduces Autonomous Agentic Payments Category

BeInCrypto has published the long list for the Best Autonomous Agentic Payments Platform category as part of its 2026 Institutional 100 research program. The annual initiative recognizes institutional digital asset excellence across 26 categories and six pillars. The autonomous agentic payments segment falls under Pillar 4: Tokenization and On-Chain Finance.

According to BeInCrypto, more than 30 firms were initially screened. Ten companies advanced to the primary long list. The firms are listed alphabetically and are not ranked. A shortlist will be announced in May 2026, with the final winner revealed at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris on June 2-3, 2026.

The category focuses on infrastructure that enables AI agents to operate financially on blockchain rails. This includes the ability to hold digital assets, access wallets, sign transactions, and settle payments with minimal human intervention. Pure AI frameworks without a dedicated payment module were excluded from consideration.

Methodology Focuses on Early-Stage Market Metrics and Expert Review

The evaluation follows Track B of the Institutional 100 methodology. Scoring consists of 30% quantitative metrics, 50% Expert Council assessment, and 20% disclosed company data.

Seven criteria were applied: transaction volume on agentic rails, integration depth across AI frameworks, wallet programmability and policy controls, developer adoption, security and compliance, funding and viability, and innovation during the award window.

BeInCrypto states that the higher weighting for Expert Council input reflects the early stage of the agentic payments market. While on-chain data exists for several platforms, many launches are recent and not yet fully captured by traditional financial metrics. Data verification included regulatory registers, audited filings, on-chain analytics, x402 Foundation metrics, earnings transcripts, partnership announcements, and direct company disclosures.

Stablecoin and Protocol Providers Form Core of the Long List

Several firms on the list operate at the stablecoin or protocol layer.

Circle Internet Group, based in New York, provides a stablecoin issuer agent stack built on USDC rails. According to the research, USDC settles 99.8% of x402 agentic payments. Circle’s Agent Stack launched on May 11, 2026 and includes a command line interface, agent wallets, a marketplace, nanopayments, and Circle Skills. The company reports live support on 11 EVM chains and more than 500 marketplace endpoints.

Coinbase, headquartered in San Francisco, contributes through the x402 protocol layer and its AgentKit developer ecosystem. As of April 21, 2026, about 69,000 active AI agents operated on x402, generating more than 167 million transactions and 50 million US dollars in volume. x402 V2 launched in December 2025 under the Linux Foundation umbrella. The protocol layer was selected for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments.

TRON DAO, based in Geneva, reports 977 million transactions in the first quarter of 2026 and an 86 billion US dollar stablecoin supply with 26 billion US dollars in total value locked. In March 2026, its AI Fund expanded from 100 million to 1 billion US dollars. TRON also launched B.AI with support for the 8004 identity standard and the x402 protocol.

Identity Standards and Network-Level Payment Rails

Identity and settlement layers represent another segment of the long list.

The Ethereum Foundation’s dAI Team, located in Zug, launched a dedicated AI initiative on September 15, 2025. Its mandate covers the AI economy on Ethereum and a decentralized AI stack. ERC-8004 was finalized at Devconnect Buenos Aires and establishes an on-chain identity and reputation layer for AI agents.

Skyfire, based in San Francisco, focuses on agent identity and payment protocols. The company raised 9.5 million US dollars and counts Anthropic, Cohere, Replicate, and Hugging Face among its customers. Its KYAPay system is designed for verifiable agent identity and USDC settlement. Skyfire also announced a partnership with F5 Networks targeting enterprise agentic commerce.

The Solana Foundation, headquartered in Zug, reports 650 billion US dollars in stablecoin volume in February 2026 and more than 15 million on-chain agent payments cleared to date. Pay.sh launched on May 5, 2026 in collaboration with Google Cloud. The Solana Agent Kit provides more than 60 pre-built actions for developers.

Full-Stack Platforms, Onramps, and Settlement Providers

Other listed firms operate full-stack payment solutions or onramps for agentic transactions.

Crossmint, based in New York, has raised about 23.6 million US dollars and reports more than 40,000 companies and developers using its services across more than 40 blockchains. It offers smart contract wallets across EVM, Solana, and Stellar, as well as virtual Visa and Mastercard cards for agents with spending caps.

MoonPay, headquartered in Miami, serves more than 30 million customers across 180 countries. The company holds a NYDFS Trust Charter, BitLicense, and MiCA Netherlands registration. MoonAgents Card launched on May 1, 2026, and MoonPay Agents introduced non-custodial AI wallets in February 2026.

Mesh, based in San Francisco, positions itself as a settlement layer for agentic commerce. It raised 75 million US dollars in January 2026 at a 1 billion US dollar valuation. The company reports 400 million users via partners across more than 100 countries and integrates Google AP2 for natural language agent purchases. Mesh is also a pilot partner for Visa Intelligent Commerce Connect.

Ant Digital Technologies, located in Hangzhou, China, operates an agent-to-agent economy infrastructure platform. Its Anvita platform, including Anvita TaaS and Anvita Flow, supports x402 payments and related modules. Anvita launched on March 31, 2026 at Real Up Cannes. USDC integration with Circle is in progress, and stablecoin licenses are pending in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Luxembourg.

Our Assessment

The 2026 long list shows that autonomous agentic payments are developing across multiple infrastructure layers, including stablecoins, protocol standards, identity systems, settlement networks, and card-based spending products. The evaluation framework combines on-chain metrics, expert review, and company disclosures to assess early-stage platforms. For users monitoring crypto payment infrastructure, the list identifies firms currently building systems that enable AI agents to transact directly on blockchain rails under defined compliance and identity standards.