Coinbase or Stripe: Two Different Architectures for Agent-to-Agent or Agent-Mediated Payments
4/19/2026
Jules Kovac
Business Analyst, Founder
Coinbase builds infrastructure where the AI agent is the economic actor with its own crypto wallet. Stripe builds infrastructure where the agent is merely a mediator for a human's fiat money. Here is how the data actually flows in these two architectures, where the trust boundaries lie, and how you should build for them.

