a16z: "AI agent payment volume over the past month totals $1.6 million…infrastructure is growing"

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of the world’s largest venture capital (VC) firms, said AI agent payment volumes are smaller than commonly reported.

Noah Levine, a partner at a16z Crypto, said on X that “Bloomberg recently reported that AI agents generated about $24 million in payments over the past 30 days,” adding that “on-chain figures are around $3 million,” as of the 11th (local time). a16z Crypto is a16z’s blockchain investment arm. Levine said, “If you filter out wash trading as well, the estimate drops to $1.6 million,” adding that “this gap shows just how early the (AI agent) measurement infrastructure still is.”

Levine stressed that “$1.6 million isn’t a big number, but the infrastructure being built on top of it is anything but small.” He noted, “Coinbase created the x402 protocol, and Google incorporated x402 into its agent payments protocol,” adding that “what these companies are betting on isn’t $1.6 million a month, but the future numbers that will emerge when AI agents become default buyers.” x402 is a protocol optimized for AI agent payments.