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As artificial intelligence agents become more sophisticated and start paying each other for goods and services, they'll likely use a blockchain to do it, and then the companies running those chains will collect a toll. Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) and Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) are well-positioned to benefit from that trend, if it happens.
What's more, some major investors think we're already seeing this as an early preview of the incoming AI agent economy. Let's take a look at what those investors are saying and how Coinbase and Robinhood are already positioned to capitalize on it.
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According to Agent Economy, a crypto data provider, agents have already settled 191.9 million payments as of Oct. 9, totaling $41.9 million.
Those payments ran through a protocol called x402, a Coinbase-built standard used to pay web services with stablecoins without creating any kind of account. That early progress is a big part of what's attracting venture capital investors' attention.
For instance, in December 2025, Andreessen Horowitz's crypto investing wing predicted that AI agents would need to have cryptographically signed credentials to transact with each other, and it pictured those agents paying each other for data and computing time through x402. Similarly, in a Sept. 23 paper from this year, BlackRock said that stablecoin issuers would likely be the first big winners as agents started to buy services.
Given that the actual volume of money being moved with x402 is still on the low side -- it launched in May 2025 -- investors should be positioned for what's coming rather than what's here right now. And that's why Coinbase and Robinhood are two strong ways to get exposure to this trend.
Coinbase operates Base, which is a Layer-2 network that currently hosts 44.5% of all x402 settlements. Coinbase's Q2 2026 earnings deck said over 90% of agentic stablecoin payments by value ran on Base.
Furthermore, over 99% of agentic commerce used the USDC stablecoin, which Coinbase co-founded and helps to distribute along with its other co-founder and issuer, Circle Internet Group. So it has ownership of the payment infrastructure, a share of the income from the asset being paid, and a founding role in the payment protocol that most payors use. That gives it a hand in several layers of the stack that an agent-based crypto economy would need.
The catch is that the Base network's transaction fees are low, which limits the revenue the company stands to gain from the network being highly utilized. Coinbase's other transaction revenue, which includes Base, fell 11% to $47 million in Q2 2026. Per DefiLlama, Base users paid $4.7 million in fees in September 2026.
The bigger prize stems from USDC. Per a 2025 filing by Circle, Coinbase is entitled to collect half of the leftover reserve income from USDC held outside of Coinbase's platform, and a bigger share of the income on USDC held in its own products. Coinbase reported $292 million in stablecoin revenue in Q2 2026, about 24% of its $1.2 billion total. If agents keep favoring USDC, the dollars they park in it will feed this revenue line as the agent economy grows.
Robinhood's Robinhood Chain, which is a Layer-2 network built with technology from Arbitrum, launched on July 1, and it was marketed as AI-native. Per data from DefiLlama, it collected $35.9 million in fees in September 2026, though it's unclear how much of that activity was linked specifically to agents.
Regardless, there were 14,993 agents registered on Robinhood Chain as of Oct. 9. In other words, Robinhood's agent story is just beginning, and its approach is similar to Coinbase's in that it'll own the venue where agent-initiated investing takes place.
But it doesn't have the same exposure to revenue from stablecoin reserves as Coinbase does, so it isn't as highly exposed to upside from agents' transactions presently. For now, its core brokerage carries the stock, and Robinhood reported total net revenue up 32% to $1.3 billion in Q2 2026.
Both of these stocks are worth buying to get exposure to the growth of the agent economy, with Coinbase being the more direct bet on agents. Robinhood, on the other hand, is probably the safer pick, as its business is diversified significantly outside of crypto.
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Alex Carchidi has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends BlackRock. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Top VC Investors Say the AI Agent Economy Will Run on Blockchain Rails. Here Are 2 Blockchain Stocks to Buy Now. was originally published by The Motley Fool
