Chainalysis: SI-agent payments over the x402 protocol on Base exceed 138 million, 87% of them under 10 cents
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
SI agents increasingly pay for compute and data themselves, so far mostly in small amounts.
According to a Chainalysis report relayed by Fortune, the cumulative number of transactions on the x402 protocol, built for payments between agents, grew from about 1,500 in mid-2025 to more than 138 million in the third quarter of 2026. The median time between funding a wallet and its first payment fell from 73 days in late 2025 to 18 minutes; about 90% of active wallets received additional top-ups within 30 days, versus about 71% a year earlier. Developers fund bots' wallets with stablecoins, and the bots buy compute, data and tools themselves without confirmation of each operation. The study is limited to one protocol, so conclusions for the whole industry are incomplete.
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