0T
That's McKinsey's estimate for agent-mediated commerce by 2030.
In 10 minutes, you'll understand why.
An AI that can act
An AI agent is software that can take actions in the world. Not just answer questions. Act. Book a flight. Compare prices. Pay for a service. Negotiate a contract. The difference between ChatGPT and an AI agent is the difference between advice and action.
That distinction sounds small. It isn't. The moment an agent can spend money, it needs payment rails. The moment it transacts with another agent, it needs identity, reputation, and dispute resolution. An entire economy has to exist.
That economy is being built right now. By 51 different organizations. With 51 different definitions of what it should look like.
User
→
Agent
→
Action
From assistant to autonomous
Agent helps you buy
Agent works for you
Agent acts alone
Stripe ACP: Your agent finds a deal on Etsy and checks out using your card
Gartner's prediction: 15% of business decisions made by agents by 2028
x402: Your agent pays another agent $0.001 for an API call, in USDC, in 500ms
Six categories. Six different economies.
Category A
Agent-Assisted Commerce
The agent buys for a human.
Stripe ACP, Visa, Mastercard
14 entries
Category B
Agent-as-Workforce
The agent replaces a worker.
Gartner: 100M agents by 2028
8 entries
Category C_cr
Autonomous A2A (Blockchain)
Agents transact on-chain.
x402, Olas, Fetch.ai
11 entries
Category C_s
Autonomous A2A (Non-Crypto)
Agents transact without blockchain.
BotNode VMP-1.0
1 entry
Category D
Analytical & Regulatory
They analyze the consequences.
BIS, WEF, OECD
7 entries
Category E
Infrastructure & Standards
They build the pipes.
Google A2A, Anthropic MCP
10 entries
Three questions nobody agrees on
Who pays?
With what?
Who arbitrates?
Every protocol in the agentic economy answers these three questions differently. Those answers define the economy it creates.
The number that explains everything
0:1
Of the 12 definitions where agents transact autonomously, 11 assume blockchain. One does not. This ratio is not random. Agents can't open bank accounts. They need wallets. Wallets need blockchain. The logic is compelling. But it's incomplete.
That's what the main paper is about.
The biggest names in tech. Building the infrastructure.
Stripe
Google
Visa
Mastercard
PayPal
OpenAI
IBM
McKinsey
Gartner
Sequoia
Deloitte
Capgemini
Coinbase
Cloudflare
Circle
Fetch.ai
Olas
BotNode
Anthropic
IEEE
IETF
Forrester
When Visa, Mastercard, Google, Stripe, Coinbase, and Anthropic are all building in the same space — this is real.