Stripe Connect for the Agentic Web
Problem: Marketplaces that want to allow customers to pay providers per-use (just like AirBNB!) require complex infrastructure and - more importantly - a money transmission licenses.
Solution: A - Stripe Connect like - drop-in API that gives users and agents wallets, lets them pay directly with zero cost and zero latency, while your marketplace makes a cut automatically.
Overview
The Agentic Web is the next stage of the internet: instead of humans clicking through interfaces, autonomous agents will carry out tasks on our behalf. These agents will plan, negotiate, and transact with other agents, unlocking entirely new ways for software to work for us. The shift is already underway, as major technology companies adopt agent frameworks and research increasingly shows how multi-agent systems can transform everything from enterprise automation to consumer services.
But to make the Agentic Web real, a host of challenges need to be solved. Agents must discover and trust one another, interoperate across open protocols, and stay safe under human oversight. They need ways to share context, attribute actions, and prove accountability. And critically, they must be able to exchange value reliably and at scale — because without payments, there is no economy to sustain their work.
This is where today's infrastructure falls short. Fiat payment systems, especially credit cards, are completely unsuited to agent-scale activity. They are too slow — settlement takes days, not milliseconds. They are too expensive — a fixed fee of $0.20 to $0.30 per transaction makes it impossible to pay for a $0.002 service call. And they are optimized for large, infrequent human purchases, not the rapid-fire, machine-to-machine interactions the Agentic Web depends on.
The Critical Role of Marketplaces
At the heart of the Agentic Web lie AI marketplaces — platforms where developers publish AI services, users discovers and accesses agents, and value flows automatically between providers and consumers. These marketplaces are already emerging as the primary distribution channels for AI capabilities.
OpenAI's CustomGPT store lets users find specialized assistants for everything from coding to creative writing. Hugging Face serves as the primary hub for AI models, with thousands of open-source and commercial offerings. SnackBite enables users to discover and pay for AI-powered micro-services. Similar platforms like Replit Agent, Zapier Central, and Microsoft Copilot Studio are creating ecosystems where specialized AI agents can be discovered, composed, and monetized.
But these marketplaces face the same fundamental problem: they can't handle true per-use billing. Most default to subscription models or bundles because the economics of microtransactions simply don't work with traditional payment rails. A GPT call worth 0.2¢ becomes economically impossible when credit card fees add 30¢ to every transaction.
This forces artificial pricing models. Instead of paying exactly what you use, consumers get "credits" or "monthly allowances." Instead of setting their own prices, providers must fit into pre-packaged tiers. The result is inefficient resource allocation and barriers to entry for smaller providers.
What AI marketplaces really need is Stripe Connect for agents — a payment system that automatically splits transactions between users, platforms, and providers, but operates at machine speed for fraction-of-a-cent transactions.
Why Existing Payment Solutions Fall Short
AI marketplaces look simple on the surface. Users find assistants, subscribe to them, or pay per use. Developers publish their services, get paid automatically, and the marketplace takes a cut. Pricing could be subscription-based, usage-based, or a hybrid — which increasingly looks like the preferred model across the industry.
But AI is different. You can't just pay providers a fixed fee. Their costs are tied directly to usage, and they need to be compensated per call, per prompt, or per API request. And just like on Airbnb, providers also need the freedom to set their own prices.
So what do you reach for as the operator? Stripe Connect.
Stripe powers thousands of marketplaces already. A customer pays, Stripe processes the transaction, and it splits the money between you and the provider. Stripe handles the payment logic — charge the customer, allocate your commission, pay the provider. Easy.
At least, until you hit the numbers.
The Microtransaction Problem
Out of the box, this is exactly how Stripe Connect (and similar platforms) operate: one transaction at a time. That's why they make it simple — they take responsibility for routing payments between all parties with each charge.
But that's also the problem. A GPT call or API request may only be worth a fraction of a cent. Even marked up, you're often charging users a penny or two. Credit cards, however, add a fixed fee of ~30¢ to every transaction. That means every 1¢ payment costs 30¢ to process. The economics collapse immediately.
The Wallet Workaround
The obvious fix is to let users preload a balance — $10 or $20 upfront — and then deduct pennies as they consume services. This avoids credit card fees on every microtransaction. Platforms like Stripe Connect also support this model in part, through what they call "separate charges and transfers": the customer pays the platform once, the platform holds the funds, and then later it decides how much to transfer to each provider.
But why can't a marketplace simply create a digital wallet, manage balances internally, and then settle with providers later to make the whole thing economically viable?
Here's the catch: the moment your marketplace holds money on behalf of users and lets them spend it with multiple providers, you've created an open-loop stored-value system. Regulators treat this as money transmission. Suddenly you need money transmitter licenses, segregated accounts, KYC/AML checks, audits, and liability for customer funds.
This isn't just theory — even Airbnb had to apply for special licenses just to manage credits and refunds.
The Dead End
So marketplace operators end up cornered between two bad choices:
- Stripe and card payments: uneconomical at sub-dollar scale.
- Stored-value wallets: trigger regulatory burdens that only banks and large platforms can afford.
And yet, providers can't be paid fairly without usage-based billing. Which leaves one big question hanging over every AI marketplace:
If Stripe fees make microtransactions impossible and stored-value regulation blocks creating your own digital wallets, how can AI marketplaces operate?
Where Existing Approaches Fall Short
The Next Wave Is Coming
Arc (Circle) and Tempo (Stripe) promise to finally solve blockchain's settlement problems when they launch in 2025. Arc delivers sub-second finality with USDC as native gas token, targeting 3,000-10,000 TPS using Malachite consensus. Tempo pushes further—100,000+ TPS with an enshrined AMM that lets any stablecoin pay gas fees, built on Reth for EVM compatibility. Google's Universal Ledger (GCUL) follows with Python smart contracts and institutional-grade infrastructure. These aren't general-purpose VMs doing payments on the side—they're purpose-built settlement layers with payment-specific opcodes and dedicated transaction lanes.
A Decade of Innovation Got Us Here
The blockchain industry has spent years iterating toward the perfect payment rail, each attempt revealing critical constraints:
On-chain settlement (2015-present) pioneered atomic, trustless payments but hit fundamental limits. Even optimized chains like Solana (400ms block times, $0.00025 fees) or Polygon (<2s, $0.01) require global consensus for every transaction. When agents make 1000 calls/minute, those milliseconds and fractions of cents compound into seconds of latency and dollars in fees.
State channels (Lightning 2018, Raiden 2020) solved the latency problem through off-chain transactions with on-chain settlement. But they require pre-funded channels between counterparties—impossible when agents dynamically discover and call new services. The capital lockup alone (billions needed for global agent liquidity) makes this unviable for the permissionless agent economy.
Payment channel networks tried to fix this with HTLC routing and liquidity pools, but path-finding becomes O(n²) complex at scale. Worse, they lose transaction atomicity—if hop 3 of 5 fails, unwinding is complex. The routing problem alone consumed years of Lightning development just to enable pizza purchases.
ERC-20 permits (EIP-2612, 2020) brought gasless transactions via signature-based approvals. But they're binary—either unlimited approval (security nightmare) or per-transaction signatures (latency nightmare). No native support for spending scopes like "max $10/day for API calls" or attribution tracking through delegation chains.
Probabilistic micropayments (Orchid 2019, Livepeer 2018) brilliantly reduced on-chain footprint by settling randomly—send a 1% chance of $1 instead of $0.01. Perfect for homogeneous streams, but agents need deterministic payment for each unique task. You can't probabilistically pay for a specific inference result.
Native AI tokens (AGIX/ASI, FET, OLAS) built complete agent economies with native utility tokens. But they added FX risk to every transaction—your API costs fluctuate with token price. The cognitive overhead of managing treasury volatility killed adoption outside crypto-native teams.
x402 (Coinbase 2024) elegantly embedded payments in HTTP using the dormant 402 status code. One line of middleware, payments in headers, chain-agnostic design. But it still inherits the underlying settlement model—every HTTP request triggers an on-chain transaction. Beautiful protocol, wrong economic model.
Nevermined (2024) got closest to solving the agent billing problem with payment plans, credits, and MCP integration. Agents can buy credits upfront and spend them on API calls without per-transaction settlement. But it's a closed system—credits are provider-specific, don't compose across services, and still inherit the underlying chain's settlement latency when moving between providers. It solves billing within a silo, not across the open agent economy.
The Real Problem They Leave Unsolved
Arc, Tempo, and GCUL will deliver sub-cent, sub-second settlement. But they're still settlement layers, not billing systems.
Agents need programmatic spending controls—not just "wallet has X balance" but "spend max Y per call, Z per day, only on services matching pattern W." They need attribution through delegation chains—when AgentA delegates to AgentB which calls AgentC, the costs must trace back. They need dispute resolution that doesn't require smart contract arbitration for every $0.001 charge.
Most critically, they need economic abstraction. Even at Tempo's theoretical $0.0001 per transaction, 1000 API calls still cost $0.10 in fees for $0.10 in compute value—100% overhead. The unit economics break.
Bottom line: Settlement infrastructure has improved 1000x. But agents don't need better settlement—they need to avoid settlement entirely for micro-transactions. Credit-before-settlement isn't an optimization, it's an existential requirement for the agent economy.
Grindery: Stripe Connect for the Agentic Web
The easiest way to think about Grindery is Stripe Connect — but for agents instead of humans. A user pays, the platform takes a cut, and the provider gets their share. The difference is that with Grindery, this flow happens at machine speed, for fractions of a cent, without tripping over fees or licensing.
How the System Works
- Create a Wallet for Each User
Every user automatically gets a smart wallet. They don't see seed phrases or gas — it looks and feels like a prepaid balance.
- Authorize Providers
Users give providers permission to debit their wallet within defined scopes: max amount per call, daily caps, or total spend. Think of it as issuing a virtual credit card number with programmable limits.
- Log Usage Events
When an agent or provider runs a task, the platform logs the event with the Grindery API. The wallet instantly checks if it's authorized. If yes, the service executes immediately.
- Automatic Splits
Just like Stripe Connect, Grindery can split payments automatically. A $2 charge can send $1.70 to the provider, $0.20 to the platform, and $0.10 to a sub-agent — all enforced by the ledger.
- Batch Settlement
Instead of moving money each time, all accepted charges are bundled and settled together on-chain. Providers can withdraw their balances at any time, while users still see real-time updates.
How Payouts Flow
- User tops up with card, bank, or stablecoin. Funds are credited to their wallet.
- Agent executes a task. The wallet approves instantly if within scope.
- Platform earns a cut. Splits are logged in the ledger at the moment of authorization.
- Provider gets paid. Once the dispute window passes, charges are netted and settled. Providers withdraw in USDC (or converted token) directly to their own wallet or exchange.
Why It Works
- Users experience it like a prepaid balance or card-on-file.
- Developers get a dead-simple API that turns usage events into revenue.
- Providers see stable, automatic payouts without worrying about volatility or fees.
- Platforms can define commissions, fees, and splits at the protocol level — no custom billing logic required.
How It Solves the Five Problems
- Cost: By logging charges off-chain and batching settlement, one blockchain transaction can clear thousands of agent calls. Effective cost per call rounds to zero.
- Latency: Because authorization is just a local credit check, agent chains run at millisecond speed. No waiting for blocks, no UX lag.
- Regulation: The marketplace never holds user funds. Balances sit in self-custodial wallets, and settlements flow peer-to-peer. Compliance burden shifts to regulated stablecoin issuers and on-ramps.
- On-ramps: Users fund wallets with the same methods they already know — cards, banks, stablecoins — while gas abstraction hides blockchain complexity.
- Tokens: Grindery defaults to USDC for stability and compliance, but stays token-agnostic under the hood. Advanced users can settle in other assets, without forcing everyone into a proprietary token.
Native Wallet Features
Unlike traditional wallets that just hold keys and sign transactions, Grindery Wallets have billing intelligence built in:
Credit Limits: Set spending caps per agent, per day, or per task type — just like credit card limits but programmable.
Spending Scopes: Define what agents can spend on, when, and with whom. Scopes cascade through agent chains while maintaining attribution.
Usage Analytics: Built-in dashboards show spending patterns, agent activity, and cost breakdowns — no external tools needed.
Dispute Management: Review and reject charges directly in the wallet UI, with automatic reconciliation.
Multi-Currency Support: While optimized for USDC, wallets can hold and transact in any supported token, with automatic conversion at point of sale.
Implementation
Grindery Wallets integrate smoothly with existing billing systems — whether it's a simple paywall service or a SaaS provider's metering and invoicing stack. This should be as simple as making an API call: log a usage event, generate a charge entry, and let the wallet handle the rest. Developers don't build settlement logic, dispute handling, or multi-hop attribution — those come built into every Grindery Wallet.
Every user and agent gets a smart wallet to authorize charges and enforce limits. This doesn't feel like "crypto." Grindery's account abstraction stack makes it possible to provision wallets without seed phrases, let users top up with a card or bank account, and enforce spending scopes invisibly in the background. To the end user, it feels like loading a prepaid balance in a regular app; to the agent ecosystem, it provides a programmable wallet with native billing capabilities.
The wallet's settlement layer operates across low-cost L1s and L2s that already support stablecoins. Viable venues include Polygon (PoS and zkEVM), Arbitrum One or Nova, Base (Coinbase's L2), zkSync Era, BNB Chain / opBNB, and Optimism. Each offers cheap, high-throughput settlement and mature EVM compatibility. Beyond the EVM world, Solana stands out as a high-throughput USDC rail, already tapped by Visa pilots. Stellar and Celo (now an Ethereum L2) have long focused on remittances and payments, while XRP Ledger positions itself for cross-border bank rails.
All of these will come under pressure from Circle's Arc, Stripe's Tempo networks, and Google's recently announced Universal Ledger, which aim to make USDC and digital asset payments issuer-native. Grindery Wallets plug directly into those ecosystems, since the wallet is settlement-agnostic — it just needs a low-cost chain where USDC is native. The wallet intelligently routes settlements to the most efficient chain based on cost and speed.
Over time, Grindery could also deploy its own chain — either as a specialized L2 (like a validity rollup) or as an L3 sitting on top of a popular L2. Running as a dedicated layer brings two advantages: first, predictable ultra-low fees, since economics can be tuned for microtransactions rather than generalized DeFi traffic; and second, native billing opcodes, meaning batching, disputes, and attribution can be system calls instead of contracts. This reduces complexity for developers and guarantees performance at scale. Think of it as the "Stripe network" for agents, where the whole chain is optimized for credit-before-settlement billing.
The benefit of this flexible deployment strategy is twofold. In the near term, Grindery Wallets can ride existing chains and their liquidity — whether that's Polygon, Arbitrum Nova, or Base — to get adoption quickly. In the longer run, it can harden into its own app-chain or supernet/subnet (on Polygon Supernets, Avalanche Subnets, or Optimism's OP Stack), ensuring costs stay near zero even as agentic traffic grows to millions of transactions per second. That way, it doesn't just survive the coming wave of USDC-native payment rails from Circle, Stripe, and Google, but actually complements them by providing the missing billing intelligence that those raw networks lack.
Cross-Chain by Design
Grindery Wallets aren't tied to a single chain. They can hold balances and settle on any supported network: Polygon for low costs, Arbitrum for Ethereum compatibility, Base for Coinbase integration, or Solana for maximum throughput. The wallet abstracts away chain selection, automatically choosing the most efficient rail for each settlement batch.
This positions Grindery Wallets to work seamlessly with emerging USDC-native networks from Circle (Arc) and Stripe (Tempo). As these networks mature, Grindery Wallets will provide the missing billing intelligence layer they lack — the spending controls, attribution tracking, and dispute management that make agent economies possible.
Conclusion
The Agentic Web needs more than just another payment protocol or wallet solution. It needs wallets built specifically for how agents transact: millions of micro-interactions, instant authorization, traceable attribution, and user control.
Grindery Wallet provides exactly that. It's not a protocol you implement or infrastructure you deploy. It's a wallet your users already understand, with an API your developers can integrate in minutes. The credit-card style billing model is native to the wallet itself, not bolted on afterwards.
By combining smart wallets, credit management, and batch settlement into one seamless product, Grindery Wallet becomes the payment infrastructure for the Agentic Web — as fundamental as HTTP was for the Web itself. Simple for users, trivial for developers, and invisible to agents.