Agent-to-Agent Finance: Blockchain Payments and Trust Infrastructure for Autonomous AI Agents

Abstract: Autonomous AI agents are beginning to occupy a position between analytical tools and transacting counterparties. They can interpret goals, call external tools, negotiate with other agents, access data and computation, and in some settings initiate payments or blockchain transactions. This development creates a distinct problem for financial markets: if software agents can act economically, market participants need infrastructure for identity, authorisation, payment, verification, reputation and accountability. This article develops the concept of agent-to-agent finance as the layer of machine-mediated financial interaction in which autonomous agents discover counterparties, purchase services, express transaction intent, execute payments and generate auditable evidence. The argument is not that blockchain is a universal substrate for finance, but that programmable settlement, smart wallets, decentralised registries and verifiable computation can address specific coordination frictions created by autonomous agents. Drawing on recent work on blockchain A2A payments, ERC-8004 agent registries, provenance-based wallets, deterministic inference, DeFi intent mining, and official evidence on AI adoption in financial services, the article situates agent-to-agent finance as an emerging form of financial market infrastructure. It argues that the decisive design question is bounded autonomy: how to let agents transact without making markets more opaque, fragile or unaccountable.