Cloudflare launches Wallets for AI agents

Cloudflare launched Wallets, a payment system that lets software agents sign up for and pay for APIs and digital services using x402 stablecoin micropayments. The system separates human-controlled Account Wallets from agent-specific Virtual Wallets and adds an optional, human-readable identity layer for merchants.

Account Wallets are owned and funded by people or organizations. Owners set spending rules and can withdraw funds. Virtual Wallets are issued to software agents and use API keys instead of human logins. Each Virtual Wallet inherits a spending ceiling from its linked Account Wallet so an agent cannot exceed the owner’s limit without human approval.

Cloudflare designed the spending ceilings as a safety measure. An employer could give an agent a Virtual Wallet capped at $100 per week for AI inference. If an agent tries to spend beyond that cap, the transaction requires a human override. The structure is meant to let agents try low-cost services on their own while keeping larger purchases under human control.

The payment mechanism is x402, a protocol that attaches stablecoin micropayments directly to standard web requests. Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to a fiat currency, typically the U.S. dollar, which keep small payments stable. Cloudflare pairs Wallets with its Monetization Gateway, a tool that lets website and API owners charge for content or access without building separate payment systems.

Cloudflare also introduced cloudflare.pay, which links a wallet to an account and lets an agent optionally present a readable identity such as [email protected]. The identity builds on Web Bot Auth, a cryptographic keypair system that lets software prove an identity; the wallet handle turns that technical identity into a format merchants can recognize. Declaring an identity is voluntary and merchants may choose whether identified agents receive different treatment than anonymous traffic.

Cloudflare noted that a majority of web traffic now comes from bots and said it expects more transactions to originate from software conducting shopping, booking and research. The company is working with Visa, Mastercard and American Express to develop an authentication layer for what it calls agentic commerce. Developers and businesses can claim a wallet handle now; Cloudflare has not published a full timeline for live payments across all x402-compatible sites and plans to release more details as identity standards from the x402 Foundation develop.