The New Machine Economy and the Future of Payments
The Machine Economy & The Future of Payments
AI agents are no longer just making decisions — they're moving money.
Stripe, Ant International, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard are already building the infrastructure for the machine-to-machine economy.
Traditional rails require opening bank accounts, signing contracts, and invoicing cycles. The AI + stablecoin alternative: machines hold wallets, agents authorize spending, and payments happen per request, per second, or per usage.
Real-world use cases emerging now:
→ IoT & Smart Cities — power grids and smart vehicles autonomously negotiating resource sharing
→ AI Collaboration — agents across organizations sharing compute and data in real time
→ Supply Chain — machines can autonomously track, validate, and settle supply chain payments — without human intervention
The opportunities are real. B2B stablecoin payments hit $226B in 2025 — up 733% YoY — yet still 0.01% of the $1.6 quadrillion B2B payment volumes. AI agents are beginning to automate B2B transactions.
But scaling this infrastructure comes with challenges — from quantum computing threats to cryptographic rails, AI-enabled fraud, and defining accountability when autonomous agents make financial decisions.
Join us to explore the opportunities, the risks, and what it all means for investors and builders.
Speakers
Nils Pihl - Auki Labs
Danny Lung - PQA LABS
Jan Smejkal - Xverse
Tim Semelin - Skynettrading
Joseph Fridner - BitAngelsHK (Moderator)
Daniel Csontos - Pontis Ventures (Moderator)
Richard Stangland - Lunar Digital Assets (Moderator)