Agent Payment Infrastructure

Overview

For agents to participate meaningfully in the economy, they need payment infrastructure designed for machine-speed, autonomous operation. The current human-centric payment stack is too slow, too manual, and too dependent on identity systems that agents cannot use.

The foundational requirement is an agent-compatible wallet. Human wallets require password entry, biometric authentication, or multi-factor verification for every transaction. Agent wallets need programmatic access with policy-based authorization -- the ability to execute transactions within predefined parameters without per-transaction human approval.

Authorization policies define what the agent wallet can do. These policies specify maximum transaction amounts, daily spending limits, approved counterparties, and transaction types. Signet Scores can feed into these policies dynamically: as an agent's Financial dimension score increases, its spending limits expand automatically. A score drop triggers immediate limit reduction.

Settlement between agents requires new infrastructure. When Agent A pays Agent B for a completed task, the settlement should be near-instant, low-cost, and verifiable. Traditional bank transfers take days and charge fees that make micropayments uneconomic. The agent economy needs settlement layers optimized for high-frequency, low-value transactions.

Escrow services mediate high-value agent transactions. When the stakes are high enough that neither party trusts the other completely, funds are held by a neutral escrow service until task completion is verified. Signet Scores of both parties determine escrow terms: higher-trust agents get faster release and lower escrow fees.

Dispute resolution must be automated for the majority of cases. Human-mediated dispute resolution cannot scale to millions of agent transactions per day. Automated dispute resolution uses transaction audit trails, Signet Scores, and predefined rules to resolve most disputes within seconds. Human escalation is reserved for complex cases above configurable value thresholds.