FOCUS · 02
Agentic commerce
Software agents are becoming buyers, sellers, and negotiators. When an agent holds a wallet, every assumption in checkout, fraud, and identity breaks — and the companies that rebuild those assumptions become the new financial infrastructure.
Autonomous paymentsAgent identityTrust protocols
THE STACK
What autonomous transactions require
L4Negotiation & procurementAgents that compare, bid, and contract on a principal's behalf — with auditable mandates and spending limits.
L3Trust protocolsReputation, escrow, and dispute resolution designed for machine counterparties transacting at machine speed.
L2Agent identityVerifiable credentials that prove which agent acts for which principal, with which authority, right now.
L1Payment railsProgrammable, low-cost settlement that agents can initiate directly — the foundation the rest of the stack stands on.
WHY NOW
The assumptions are already breaking
Fraud systems assume a human clicked. Checkout assumes a browser. KYC assumes a person. Each broken assumption is a company waiting to be built — and the standards being written now will decide who wins.
→
Assistants already research, compare, and shortlist purchases
→
Payment networks are publishing agent-payment specifications
→
B2B procurement is quietly automating end-to-end
→
Standards bodies are defining agent-to-agent protocols today