My agent earns USDC. It sells API calls priced with x402, so tiny payments accumulate in its wallet. Which eventually raises the unglamorous question every "agents earning money" demo skips: how does that USDC become money a human can spend at a supermarket?
Here is the pattern I landed on. It needs no exchange account for the agent, no API keys, and — importantly — nobody in the middle ever holds the funds.
The constraint that shapes everything
Whatever converts crypto to fiat is regulated activity (KYC/AML, custody, payments). An autonomous agent can't and shouldn't do that part. So the design splits cleanly:
The agent handles quotes, session creation, payment of fees, and status tracking — all machine-to-machine.
