Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs analyzed 198.9 million settlements on the x402 protocol, totaling $52.7 million in volume across Base, Solana, and Polygon since May 2025. After filtering out self-payments and anomalies, researchers identified $25.62 million in likely commerce.
The study estimates that AI agents account for only 0.6% to 7.5% of the total commerce value. TRM Labs noted that current protocols struggle to distinguish between autonomous AI agents and simple automated scripts, as both can follow similar payment sequences.
USDC dominated the transaction volume, representing 99.6% of the settled value, or $52.47 million. The report highlights that while companies like Binance, Amazon, and Coinbase are integrating x402 payment layers, current agent activity remains difficult to track accurately.
TRM Labs identified a lack of voluntary on-chain agent registries as a primary barrier to transparency. The firm advocates for improved registration systems, better counterparty reputation data, and monitoring tools specifically designed for high-volume, low-value transactions.
