Building the Financial Rails for the Agentic Economy

I recently sat down with Cuy Sheffield and Bam Azizi on the Tokenized podcast to discuss the massive shift we’re seeing in the digital economy.

Earlier in my career at Google and YouTube, we focused on a central question: could the internet support 100,000 creators earning $10,000 a year? The results ultimately exceeded our expectations. In 2026, we face a similar question: how soon will we see 100,000 useful agentic endpoints autonomously exchanging value?

Here is my perspective on where we are heading and how Circle is building the infrastructure to get us there.

The shift to an agentic economy

We are moving away from an internet where humans manually click through interfaces and toward one built for agents.

When the marginal cost of building software and transmitting data approaches zero, activity explodes. We’re seeing the rise of "vibe coding" where anyone with an idea can build an application. As everyone becomes a developer, the internet will naturally fill with billions of agents.

These agents need to solve problems, and solving problems requires open programmability, autonomous coordination, and the frictionless exchange of value. This is the agentic economy.

Why it matters

The current internet was built on an ad-supported model because traditional payment rails couldn't handle tiny transactions due to incompatible cost structures. Now in 2026, using USDC and Circle Gateway, an agent can pay another agent or service a millionth of a dollar with near zero network gas fees. This unlocks the ability to continuously pay for cloud compute units or services like premium consumer content on a per-request basis, effectively replacing restrictive subscription paywalls with seamless, fractional transactions.

In this new landscape, anyone can become a merchant and create an agentic endpoint to serve this emerging world of agents. It’ll be commonplace to expose structured, machine-readable APIs that agents can discover and transact with instantly, turning any niche service into an automated, revenue-generating business with global, always-on scale.

Building the economic operating system

With our growing initiatives to expand agentic use cases with stablecoins and the introduction of Arc public testnet last year, we are committed to building the Economic OS for this new era. Circle is uniquely positioned to lead the charge with our focus on:

• Trusted digital assets: You need secure, widely used digital assets for agentic coordination on the internet. USDC and EURC are leading regulated stablecoins trusted by millions of people, businesses, and developers every day – and now agents.
• Crosschain interoperability: USDC is live on more than 30 blockchains. Agents can use Circle CCTP and Circle Gateway to programmatically move and exchange value from very large transactions to fractions of a cent seamlessly across ecosystems in real-time.
• Purpose-built network infrastructure: We are moving closer toward the mainnet launch of Arc this year. Arc is designed to give agents the open, predictable, enterprise-grade environment they need to coordinate at scale in the internet-native economy.

We recognize that the future of the agentic economy will not be defined by a single standard. Circle is taking a multi-protocol approach, working across emerging frameworks like x402, MPP, AP2, and more. By remaining protocol-agnostic, we aim to enable USDC as a universal payment asset across any endpoint and interface, providing a frictionless experience for both agents and the merchants that serve them.

Listen to the full episode

We went much deeper into the emerging "protocol wars," why credit cards and stablecoins will coexist, and how the devices of the future might be built entirely around nanopayments rather than ads.

Catch the full conversation on Tokenized:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify

The breakout moment for AI agents is already here. Join us in building the infrastructure to support what comes next.

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_{USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. See Circle’s list of regulatory authorizations.}

_{Circle Technology Services, LLC ("CTS") is a software provider and does not provide regulated financial or advisory services. You are solely responsible for services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws. For additional details, please see the Circle Developer terms of service, available at console.circle.com/legal/developer-terms.}

_{Arc testnet is offered by Circle Technology Services, LLC ("CTS"). CTS is a software provider and does not provide regulated financial or advisory services. You are solely responsible for services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws.}

_{Arc has not been reviewed or approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services.}

_{The product features described in these materials are for informational purposes only. All product features may be modified, delayed, or cancelled without prior notice, at any time and at the sole discretion of Circle Technology Services, LLC. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee or investment advice.}

_{EURC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. See Circle’s list of regulatory authorizations.}

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