Sources: Coinbase and Zerohash are among the companies vying to issue Cloudflare's stablecoin, set to launch this year to support payments for the “agentic web”
Crypto exchange Coinbase is moving fast to build the infrastructure that allows AI agents to make payments …
Context & Ripple Effects
Cloudflare had already outlined NET Dollar as a dollar-backed stablecoin for agentic-web payments. The reported issuer competition turns that product plan into a choice over which crypto infrastructure provider sits behind a Cloudflare-branded payment rail.
The move also lands as Coinbase, Circle, Stripe and others are building stablecoin-based rails for AI-agent microtransactions, making the issuer role strategically relevant beyond a single token launch.
First-order effects
- Cloudflare can evaluate Coinbase and Zerohash as potential issuance partners for its planned stablecoin, while the contenders gain a chance to supply the underlying payment infrastructure.
- Coinbase’s agent-payment buildout would be more directly tied to a large internet-platform distribution channel if it wins the mandate.
Second-order effects
- Other stablecoin and payments providers face pressure to offer agent-compatible settlement, integration and operational capabilities to platforms building their own payment layers.
- Developers and merchants connected to Cloudflare could gain another potential route for machine-to-machine payments, but the usable network will depend on the eventual issuer and integrations.
Third-order effects
- If major web-infrastructure platforms increasingly brand stablecoins while relying on specialist issuers, agentic commerce may separate distribution and user access from the regulated issuance layer.
- This points toward more agent-payment infrastructure competition centered on interoperable settlement rails rather than consumer-facing crypto products, though adoption remains contingent on actual deployment and use.
The trend: AI-agent commerce is pushing cloud, payments and crypto firms to assemble programmable settlement rails for automated transactions.