In 2026, has the AI Agent economy really started to operate?

_Author | _@bc1beat

Translation | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Translator | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

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Editor’s Note: Since the explosion of AI Agents triggered by OpenClaw, new related Meme elements have emerged almost daily within the crypto industry. We have witnessed a wave of hype rise in a very short period, only to see the next wave quickly fade away—dazzling and overwhelming. But this does not mean the wrong direction; rather, a more realistic issue is emerging: after the Meme fades, has the Agent economy truly entered a “deployable” stage? Against this backdrop, returning to infrastructure, real data, and actual operational states has become more critical than chasing the next hot keyword.

The agent economy has just experienced its most crucial month to date. In January 2026, the three foundational layers—payment, trust, and social collaboration—almost simultaneously entered the stage of being ready for production environments: x402 processed over 20 million transactions, ERC-8004 launched on the Ethereum mainnet, and over 1 million autonomous agents began social activities on Moltbook. This report will outline which infrastructures are already mature, which are still missing, and the key areas builders should focus on next.

Infrastructure is ready, but product-level solutions are still absent. With the official launch of the x402 payment protocol and ERC-8004 trust protocol, the entire ecosystem is shifting from “building infrastructure” to “developing demand-side products.” Over 20 million transactions have been completed via x402, ERC-8004 has issued over 30,000 agent identities, and approximately 1.2 million agents are registered on Moltbook. The protocols themselves have been validated to operate normally; what is truly missing are discovery mechanisms, capability verification, and middleware layers connecting these protocols.

In January, three nearly simultaneous breakthroughs occurred. OpenClaw’s GitHub Star count surpassed 100,000, attracting over 2 million developers within a week and providing a real, usable task execution and browser control environment for agents; Moltbook officially launched as the first “AI-only social network,” gathering 1.2 million agent identities in its first week; and ERC-8004 went live on the Ethereum mainnet on January 29, with contributors including MetaMask, the Ethereum Foundation, Google, and Coinbase. The frameworks, social, and trust layers completed their puzzle at the same time.

x402 has found its pricing equilibrium. Currently, 89.2% of services are priced between $0.01–$0.10, a “sweet spot” where stablecoin settlement costs are far lower than credit card fees. As the market converges toward a micro-payment economy model, x402’s average price has dropped from $0.81 to $0.29 within a month. With over 20 million transactions, no API key required, and native HTTP support, this means the payment track needed for commercial use by agents is truly operational and reasonably priced.

The core value of ERC-8004 lies in making trust a composable module. It consists of three on-chain registries: an ERC-721-based identity registry providing portable, censorship-resistant identities for agents; a reputation registry recording feedback from each interaction; and a verification registry supporting various trust models, from simple staking mechanisms to zero-knowledge proofs. Currently, over 30,000 agents have registered on the mainnet, and the trust infrastructure exists; the real question is how quickly it will be adopted.

From surface data, the situation looks bleak: transaction count down 68%, transaction volume down 77%. But the real importance lies in the underlying integration process. Artemis’s analysis shows that about 47% of December’s transaction volume came from unnatural “fake volume” activities. Removing this, the actual decline is closer to 55%. Meanwhile, the buy-sell ratio nearly doubled from 6.4:1 to 12.5:1. As fake accounts exit and genuine demand remains, each surviving service provider is serving more real users—this is a classic case of “quality replacing quantity.”

The biggest opportunity in the current agent economy stems from unmet demand. On the supply side, there are 1,583 independent service sources, while on the demand side, about 1.2 million active agents are gathered. Three key gaps exist between them: no cross-platform unified search mechanism; no capability benchmarks to prove what agents can actually do; and no trust gating mechanism connecting ERC-8004 trust verification with x402 payment execution. The protocols are in place, but product-level solutions are still missing.

Currently, agents seeking services must query Coinbase CDP, Dexter, PayAI Network, and thirdweb separately, each with different APIs and response formats. In January alone, 141 new services launched, yet there is a lack of effective distribution channels. The real opportunity lies in building a unified indexing layer: cross-platform search, real-time availability, and price comparison—a “proxy App Store” for agents. Whoever can create a decisive discovery experience will become the gateway to agent commerce.

ERC-8004, through its transaction-based reputation system, answers the question “Did they reliably complete the payment?” but this is only half of trust. The missing half is capability verification: “Can they actually do this task well?” An agent with a perfect payment record may still lack the ability to complete complex tasks. Prediction markets provide an ideal verification scenario: outcomes are verifiable, and performance is quantifiable. Projects like ClawGoGo are building benchmark infrastructure centered on accuracy rather than subjective ratings.

Currently, about 20 million transactions per month are executed without any trust verification. This creates a high-leverage opportunity for “trust gating middleware” in payments. Its integration logic is straightforward: before authorizing x402 payment, query ERC-8004 reputation data, set configurable thresholds, and submit feedback after settlement. For example: If Reputation_Score > 4.0 and Staked_Amount > $100, then proceed with payment; otherwise, reject. No team has yet built a production-grade SDK for this. The first team to do so will occupy a critical integration layer between these two protocols.

Three main paid scenarios are already emerging. First is transaction signals—paying per signal aligns well with agent’s capital management logic, with small accounts paying $0.05 per signal and institutional accounts up to $5; second is computing power—like ConwayResearch’s x402-compatible VM hosting service, allowing agents to rent computing resources via micro-payments; third is data sources—providing granular access to real-time information without subscription models. These are possible because x402 supports fine-grained management, which traditional payment systems cannot cover.

The multi-chain landscape is converging rather than dispersing. Base chain accounted for about $35 million in transaction volume and 68% of service registrations in January, benefiting from deep integration with Coinbase CDP and the Molttask marketplace; Solana contributed roughly $7.9 million, mainly in high-frequency trading and DeFi agent scenarios. Network effects are consolidating, and builders should prioritize Base while adapting for trading applications on Solana.

Platform migrations historically take a decade. The typical migration cycle has been ten years: Web from Netscape to Google took 10 years; mobile internet from iPhone to widespread app adoption took 8 years. Yet, the agent economy has completed the full infrastructure setup for payments, trust, social, and development frameworks within 30 days. Protocol maturity and scaling demands are compressing decades of platform evolution into months. The window for demand-side builders has now opened.

Optimism must be restrained. There are three key risks to watch out for. First is data noise—early indicators still include incentivized fake volume, with real organic transaction volume below top-tier data; second is security issues—witch attacks on reputation systems and API key leaks remain primary attack vectors, with related incidents already occurring on Moltbook; third is legal and tax—a framework for responsibility attribution for autonomous agents does not yet exist. Builders should design systems with adversarial environments in mind, not assuming ideal conditions.

The infrastructure phase is ending, and the application phase has begun. Current builders should focus on three things:

1. Building a unified discovery index layer, aggregating all platform services into a searchable portal
2. Establishing capability benchmarks, proving agent abilities with verifiable results rather than just scores
3. Developing trust gating middleware, integrating ERC-8004 verification into x402 payment workflows

The shift from “protocol readiness” to “product readiness” will occur within the next 2–3 months. Now is the time to take action.