AI systems can do many things: conjure images and videos, write treatises, synthesize terabytes of information, and even replicate human speech patterns and emulate emotions. But one thing they cannot yet do, as simple as it sounds, is pay for anything.

Two former Ripple developers now seek to eliminate that barrier by fusing blockchain payments with AI to bring forth what they believe will soon emerge as a new chapter for both technologies.

Their novel service, an open-source payment system called Skyfire, will allow autonomous AI agents to zip around the internet, purchasing whatever goods they need to complete assigned missions—everything from data storage and creative assets to airfare and groceries. All such transactions will be powered by USDC, the popular stablecoin.

The company, which today announced an $8.5 million seed raise, is backed by crypto heavy hitters, including Circle—the issuer of USDC—Ripple, Gemini, and the VC firm of prominent Silicon Valley billionaire and Bitcoin advocate Tim Draper. Skyfire currently runs on Polygon, the Ethereum scaling network, but it says it plans to expand to additional blockchains soon.

“We believe that without this, AI just won’t work,” Skyfire co-founder and CEO Amir Sarhangi told Decrypt. “Whether it’s us or someone else, someone will have to do this for AI.”

As Sarhangi sees it, AI agents are currently nowhere close to realizing their full potential. As soon as they encounter the need to pay for anything, they’re stuck in the mud, requiring a human intermediary to bail them out with a credit card. Such a system is in desperate need of streamlining, the developer says, and the traditional banking system is woefully unequipped to help.

“It cannot be Visa, because those rails just do not support what AI needs, which is the ability to do microtransactions 24/7, with low fees, efficiently,” he added. “That’s all stuff that crypto and blockchain offer.”

Sarhangi and his co-founder, Craig DeWitt, are not the first people to realize the potential of fusing AI and blockchain payments. For months, crypto industry leaders like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong have publicly insisted that AI’s future depends on the adoption of on-chain payments.

But they are some of the first to put that concept into action. At launch, Skyfire supports a handful of customers, ranging from a traditional auto parts manufacturer looking to streamline micropayments at auto service centers in India to AI infrastructure providers. The company also says it’s currently in conversations with several major large language models (LLMs) about adopting USDC payments for AI agents that use Skyfire.

Skyfire is particularly convinced that LLMs, which often refer users to third-party sites to buy premium assets or services involved in tasks, will find autonomous payments particularly attractive, given how the innovation will keep AI agents buzzing—and spending—in one place.

“In that process, you’re losing a lot of users,” Sarhangi said of the current multi-site flow for AI users interacting with services created by multiple developers. Currently, these sites require subscriptions or the purchase of credits, as opposed to on-demand payments.

For other companies and services that don’t yet support payments in USDC, Skyfire will utilize third-party aggregators to facilitate AI payments. Such aggregators would allow an AI agent to instantly purchase a plane ticket on United, for example, even if the airline only accepts traditional payment methods.

The company’s founders are confident, however, that by providing the first major pathway for AI agents to transact independently, they are opening the floodgates to a new digital economy fueled by a novel, nonhuman class of clients. If they’re right, most businesses might then soon be incentivized to integrate USDC as a payment method.

“AI agents are going to be the next evolution of customers,” Sarhangi said.

Skyfire is currently free to use but says it may soon take a fee on transactions, ranging from 2 to 3%. It sees its long-term value, however, as sourcing from add-on services that increase faith in the emergent AI agent economy, like verifying businesses that accept its payments.

The company is also doubling down on guardrail features for customers, like controlling how much money AI agents have access to in their wallets, creating spending limits for transactions, and instituting rules that require agents to always select lower-priced goods and services, for example.

If the future indeed brings 20 robots running around and spending your money, Skyfire is betting trust may soon become one of the internet’s hottest commodities.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.