Agentic Payments

Agentic Payments is Polygon's open infrastructure for autonomous agents that need to move money. It covers the full stack: getting an agent onchain with a scoped wallet, paying for HTTP-gated resources with x402, and establishing a verifiable onchain identity through ERC-8004.

The stack is built around three things agents actually need:

• A wallet that works without a browser: The Polygon Agent CLI provisions a Sequence Ecosystem Wallet with per-token spend caps, contract whitelists, and a 24-hour session window. Agents transact in stablecoins, no POL required for gas.
• A payment protocol for the web: x402 lets any HTTP endpoint gate access behind a micropayment. Agents probe, pay, and receive in one round-trip. No payment channels, no subscriptions.
• A trust layer between agents: ERC-8004 registers agents as onchain NFTs with linked reputation and validation registries. Any agent or contract can verify another agent's identity and track its history without relying on a centralized directory.

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What makes a payment "agentic"

A traditional onchain payment requires a human to confirm the transaction. Agentic payments remove that dependency entirely.

An agent detects a payment requirement (a 402 Payment Required response, an invoice, a subscription gate), evaluates it against its policy, and pays — all within the same execution loop. The human sets the policy upfront; the agent handles every individual transaction autonomously within those bounds.

This shifts onchain activity from user-driven to intent-driven. Agents subscribe to data feeds, pay per API call, settle micro-invoices in real time, and coordinate with other agents — all without requiring a human in the loop for each action.

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Components