Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen: 'The Grand Unification Of AI And Crypto Is About To Happen'

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The internet's long-missing payments layer may finally be falling into place as artificial intelligence converges with crypto, according to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

"I think this is the grand unification basically of AI and crypto is what’s about to happen now," Andreessen said on the "Latent Space" podcast earlier this month.

The modern internet was built without native payments, hence the long-unused HTTP status code "402 Payment Required." But stablecoins and AI agents can now fix that gap and reshape online commerce, Andreessen said.

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In the early web, developers left a placeholder for payments that went largely unused, known as the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code. "Yes. It was a 402 payment required," Andreessen said of the unused code, which was originally intended to support native online transactions.

Asked whether the industry would finally solve it, he said, "Oh, I think we will. I think it’s going to happen for sure." That gap is becoming more urgent as AI systems begin to act independently online.

Autonomous AI systems could drive the next wave of cryptocurrency adoption, Andreessen said on the podcast.

"I think AI is the crypto killer app, I think, is where this is really going to come out," he said. "AI agents are going to need money. And it’s already happening, right? If you’ve got a claw and you want it to buy things for you, you have to give it money in some form."

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He cited early users of OpenClaw who have already given it access to financial accounts.

"My friends who are the most aggressive users of OpenClaw have given their Claws bank accounts and credit cards," Andreessen added.

He said access to funds could become necessary. "If you don't give it a bank account, it's just going to break into your— Right," he said. "It's going to break into your bank account anyway."

The adoption of AI agents with access to financial accounts remains extremely low today. "The number of people who have done that today … is like, I don’t know, probably 5,000 or something, but that’s how these things start," Andreessen said.

He added, "The future is already here. It just isn’t distributed yet."

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Coinbase Global's (NASDAQ:COIN) x402 protocol, which revives the long-dormant HTTP 402 ‘Payment Required’ status code to enable stablecoin micropayments, has processed millions of transactions since its launch last year, CoinDesk reported.

In parallel, AI agents generated tens of billions of dollars in on-chain transaction volume on Solana last year, according to The Motley Fool.

The internet's long-standing payments gap could be addressed as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency converge, Andreessen said on the "Latent Space" podcast. For him, AI agents will need the ability to transact, a shift that could drive demand for crypto-based payment infrastructure.

As AI agents and stablecoin-based payments continue to evolve the crypto landscape, investors are increasingly looking for ways to gain exposure to the broader trend shaping digital finance and automation.

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