Coinbase collaborates with AWS and Anthropic to implement HTTP 402 payments for AI-to-AI transactions, enabling real-time micropayments via blockchain technology.
Coinbase’s Base network processed 12 million AI microtransactions in June 2024 through its new HTTP 402 protocol integration with AWS Bedrock and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, enabling sub-cent billing for autonomous AI resource trading.
Protocol-Level Payments Reshape Cloud Economics
Coinbase’s June 18 announcement revealed its Base network now supports ERC-7621 tokenized baskets, enabling AI systems to conduct microtransactions through AWS Bedrock’s newly added HTTP 402 support (June 20 update). AWS confirmed this allows per-inference billing as low as $0.0001 using USDC stablecoin settlements.
Autonomous AI Resource Negotiation
Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet update (June 17) introduced native payment capabilities, with early tests showing 18% operational cost reduction. ‘AI agents can now autonomously procure API services or GPU time through machine-to-machine negotiations,’ stated Anthropic’s CTO in their release notes.
Enterprise Adoption Accelerates
McKinsey’s June 19 report found 42% of enterprises now prioritize AI micropayment integration, while Gartner’s June 18 update predicts 30% SaaS adoption of HTTP 402 billing by 2025. Stripe’s June 21 Base network integration enables seamless fiat conversions for these transactions.
Historical Context: From Subscriptions to Microtransactions
The shift mirrors AWS’s 2019 move from reserved instances to per-second billing, which reduced cloud costs by 23% for dynamic workloads. Similarly, Stripe’s 2014 API-first payments infrastructure enabled the subscription economy now being challenged by granular AI transactions.
Precedent: Machine-Driven Financial Systems
The ERC-20 token standard (2015) first enabled programmable value exchange on Ethereum, laying groundwork for ERC-7621’s specialized AI baskets. This evolution parallels how HTTP status codes were expanded in 2003 to support emerging web services architectures.
