As of August 23, 2026, 98.2% of the on-chain agent payments agent economy measures are settled in USDC, computed directly from x402 settlement data. For comparison, Keyrock's May 2026 report — co-published with Coinbase, Tempo and Virtuals, and therefore not an independent source — put USDC at 98.6% of 176M payments.
USDC share of agent payments — measured vs Keyrock benchmark · % share
USDC share of agent payments — measured vs Keyrock benchmark, in % share
Period
% share
Measured (on-chain)
98.2
Keyrock (not independent)
98.6
Why token concentration is the number to watch
If agent payments settle overwhelmingly in one stablecoin, that token becomes critical infrastructure for the whole agent economy — an outage, a de-peg, or a compliance freeze would propagate straight into agent commerce. Concentration is a systemic fact worth measuring directly rather than assuming. This page reports the live token split of the x402 settlements agent economy observes on-chain, recomputed from the settlement data rather than taken from any issuer's reporting.
Reading the benchmark honestly
The most-cited external figure comes from Keyrock's May 2026 report, which found USDC settling the large majority of the agent payments it studied. That report was co-published with Coinbase, Tempo and Virtuals — the issuer and rails with the most to gain from a “crypto is the default” narrative — so it is not an independent source, and its 98.6% headline should be read with that conflict in mind. The on-chain figure on this page is measured independently; where it agrees or disagrees with the benchmark is exactly the useful comparison.
Also asked
Is USDC really 98.6% of agent payments?
That figure is from Keyrock's May 2026 report, which was co-published with Coinbase, Tempo and Virtuals and is not independent. The independently-measured on-chain share on this page is the check on that headline.
Cite this page
agent economy, “What share of agent payments are settled in USDC?”, agenteconomy.to/stats/usdc-share-of-agent-payments, figures as of August 23, 2026 (UTC). Recomputable from agenteconomy.to/data.json.