Mastercard is granting builders early access to Agent Pay for Machines subsequent to comprehensive trials alongside Cloudflare, Ant International, BVNK, AIsa, Base, and Coinbase.
Mastercard initially unveiled Agent Pay for Machines back in June, featuring capabilities for expenditure management alongside card, bank account, and stablecoin transactions. The company is presently inviting developers to evaluate its APIs and share input regarding desired features, although the initiative stays in a testing phase and is not yet available commercially.
At a presentation during Cloudflare Connect, marketing firm Hype assigned an artificial intelligence agent a test task to formulate an advertising strategy for a new protein bar release. The assignment required purchasing social media analytics from AIsa and acquiring eight promotional graphics via Cloudflare AI Gateway, operating inside a financial limit sanctioned by Hype. The showcase featured nine distinct transactions directed toward the two vendors.
Coinbase and Base handle the crypto side
The autonomous program utilized the Coinbase-supported x402 protocol to settle the costs for the services. The x402 specification derives its designation from the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” error code and enables websites, application programming interfaces, and AI agents to demand and collect funds via distributed ledger and conventional payment pathways.
Whenever a merchant demanded funds, it issued an HTTP 402 reply. The seller validated the automated agent’s cryptographically signed payment voucher prior to releasing the utility. Mastercard explained that transaction vouchers can be grouped together and claimed at a later time, avoiding the need to clear every single transaction individually.
Coinbase Developer Platform provided the digital wallet architecture utilized to supply capital to the agent during the Hype test, while Base served as the decentralized settlement network.
Digital dollar infrastructure provider BVNK, purchased by Mastercard during August, functioned as the agent wallet and leveraged Mastercard’s Global Money Platform to handle transactions and settlement utilizing traditional currency or stablecoins. Merchants have the option to accept funds in their chosen currency, digital token, or transfer rail.
“The web gave software a way to communicate. APIs gave software a way to use services. Now AI agents need a way to pay for them,” Mastercard noted within a declaration provided to The Block. “That’s what we’re building.”
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/business/2026-10-20-mastercard-opens-early-access-to-ai-agent-payments-following-pilots-with-coinbase-base-and-cloudflare-421406.
