Agents can't open bank accounts or click "Sign up with Google." Agent wallets solve this with programmable custody: keys held in secure infrastructure (MPC or enclaves), stablecoin balances, native x402 support for machine-to-machine payments, and guardrails the owner defines in code.
Two 2026 landmarks: Coinbase launched CDP Agentic Wallets (February 2026) — MPC-secured wallets with session caps, per-transaction limits and gasless settlement on Base, installable via CLI or an MCP server. Cloudflare announced Cloudflare Wallets with cloudflare.pay identity handles (August 4, 2026), giving agents deployed on Cloudflare a stable identity and human-set spending limits on x402 rails; handle reservations opened first, with wallet infrastructure rolling out over the following months.
Policy is the product: a human owner sets spending caps, transaction limits and scopes, and the agent transacts autonomously only inside them. Keys stay in secure infrastructure (MPC/enclaves) rather than with the agent itself.
Today they're mostly stablecoin wallets on x402 rails (e.g. USDC on Base or Solana), but the same pattern — scoped, delegated payment credentials — also exists on card rails via network tokens like Stripe's Shared Payment Tokens or Mastercard's Agentic Tokens.