Translated by: Baihua Blockchain

Mastercard expanded its payment network to autonomous AI agents on Wednesday, launching Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M). This product initially partnered with more than 30 collaborators covering crypto infrastructure, stablecoin issuers, payment processors, and DeFi protocols.

The company announced this news on Wednesday morning through its official X account, and named the first batch of 31 participating parties, which includes Coinbase, RippleX, Stripe, Solana Foundation, Polygon, Aave Labs, OK, Stellar, MoonPay, Adyen, Alchemy, Anchorage Digital, Ant International, Checkout.com, Cloudflare, Crossmint, Getnet by Santander, Global Payments, Nevermined, Rain, and Utila.

Mastercard stated: “We are launching this initiative with over 30 partners to make it a reality from day one. This is not just about more payment capabilities, but a completely new mode of business operation.”

AP4M positions Mastercard's payment network as the governance and trust layer for business activities between pure software agents, no longer relying on manual checkout processes. This system encompasses four functions: credential authentication for registered agents, defining their spending authority, completing transactions via bank cards and account channels, and settling in fiat or stablecoin.

Mastercard uses “scalability” to describe the goals of this initiative.

The company stated on Wednesday: “As AI agents start to operate autonomously, payments will move behind the scenes and occur at machine speed and massive scale.” Its clear objective is to “bring structure, governance, and trust to this new category of payments.”

The platform will attach Verifiable Intent, spending limits, and authorization rules to each agent. This design aims to distinguish authorized machine-to-machine transactions from unauthorized activities. Mastercard cites the example that a flower shop can use AI agents to automatically purchase domain names, hosting, and checkout infrastructure; logistics agents can also automatically pay for freight, warehousing, and cold chain monitoring costs.

Aave Labs is also one of the first partners. Aave founder Stani Kulechov positions Aave as the “credit layer for agent payments.” This definition implies that DeFi borrowing protocols in the future may target not only human borrowers, but also registered AI agents, providing them with on-chain credit lines.

The stablecoin settlement option connects AP4M to Mastercard's broader digital asset layout. Among the cooperation list, Coinbase and RippleX are closely related to stablecoins: Coinbase operates USDC with Circle, and Ripple issues RLUSD. The list also includes Anchorage Digital—the only federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S.—and MoonPay. It is noteworthy that Mastercard collaborated with MoonPay in May 2025 to support stablecoin payments in checkout scenarios.

AP4M is not the same as the “24/7 stablecoin settlement” product announced by Mastercard in April 2025. The latter targets existing human payment processes on bank card and wallet infrastructure; while AP4M targets “non-human entities” — software agents acting on programmed instructions with no human involvement in the transaction process.

The core distinction in structure is reflected in the identity layer. AP4M requires each agent to complete registration and verification before initiating a transaction; while the stablecoin payment product launched in April only requires a wallet and merchant terminal.

In fact, Mastercard first proposed the Agentic Payments Program in a press release in April 2025, focusing then on consumer-oriented “delegated” payments and listing Microsoft as its first major partner. Mastercard's Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert described the goal as: “Redefining business in the AI era, including establishing a new merchant interface to distinguish trusted agents from malicious actors.”

Today, AP4M extends this plan to fully autonomous machine-to-machine commerce: when transactions occur, there is no longer a need for human entities to provide real-time authorization delegations. Solana Foundation, Polygon, and Stellar also confirmed their first partner status on Wednesday morning through their respective X accounts, indicating that AP4M has already covered multiple blockchain settlement networks since day one of its launch.

Article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/06/6345.html

Source: https://thedefiant.io/converge/tradfi-and-fintech/mastercard-agent-pay-machines-ap4m-ai-agents-crypto-partners