Cloudflare at Payments Crossroads as Coinbase and Stripe Vie to Set AI Agent Standard

Cloudflare provides infrastructure for about one-fifth of the world’s websites. Its planned NET Dollar stablecoin would be more than a new payment tool: it could help determine the technical standard AI agents use to purchase services and settle fees automatically. Coinbase and Stripe are therefore competing for a role in the project, with each seeking to establish its protocol as a universal internet standard.

As of July 20, 2026, Cloudflare had not announced whether Coinbase or Stripe would help issue NET Dollar. It had also disclosed no launch date, issuance size or partnership value. The competing technical approaches are Stripe’s MPP protocol and Coinbase’s open x402 protocol, which is built on the HTTP 402 status code. Cloudflare’s eventual choice could shape the AI agent payments ecosystem.