Coinbase launched a standalone account product for AI agents, letting assistants including ChatGPT and Claude execute trades, manage portfolios, and pay for data autonomously under user-defined guardrails.
Coinbase for Agents went live Thursday as a separate account from the main Coinbase app. Users connect an existing Coinbase account, set spending limits, and hand the agent access. At launch, agents can trade crypto spot markets and derivatives, per the announcement. Support for equities and prediction markets is planned. The x402 payments integration, which lets agents pay for paywalled research data and APIs without logins or subscriptions, is coming next week.
The product offers two operating modes. An agent can run inside an isolated sandbox with no visibility into the user's broader holdings, or draw directly from the main account balance. Coinbase said it will soon add customizable controls covering maximum trade size, what services the agent can interact with, and total spending caps.
Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's Head of AI Product, told TechCrunch the design intent sets it apart from pure trading platforms: "We're the only one that combines exchange access with a native payments protocol. We're aiming to build a fundamentally different product for a future where most of the internet is accessed through agents."
