Inside
@Stripe's MPP IRL: machine payments, stablecoins, and the future of agent commerce.
Agents are starting to pay for things on their own: API calls, services, each other. Nobody's agreed on how that should work. This panel was three takes on it.
@BackseatVC (Stripe) leads product for Machine Payments — the open standard for how agents pay for things.
@dwr (
@tempo) is building stablecoin payment rails, and thinks that's what agent commerce runs on, not cards.
@blauyourmind (Royal) magician turned
@a16z Crypto partner turned CTO is exploring programmable money for creators, and why the demand side is barely here yet.
We got into:
• Why HTTP 402, a status code from the early web, is suddenly the backbone of agent payments
• Why Dan thinks a credit card is a private key and why stablecoins are safer for agents
• Where stablecoins actually win first
• Whether you should build for agent payments now or wait
• Why the demand side is "virtually nonexistent" and what that means if you're building
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Event Kickoff
JEN LEE — Product Lead, Stripe
(00:44) What the Machine Payments Protocol Is
(01:28) How MPP Works — the HTTP 402 Payment Challenge
(03:25) Adoption So Far: ~30,000 Transactions
(04:04) Building Trust — Shared Tokens & the Link Agent Wallet
(05:56) What the Creator Economy Looks Like When the Audience Is Agents
(07:15) What She Was Certain About at 22 That's Now Wrong
DAN ROMERO — GTM, Tempo
(08:34) Meet Dan
(08:49) Why Stablecoins, and the Genius Act Tailwind
(09:48) "A Credit Card Is Basically a Private Key"
(11:19) Should Every Company Be Thinking About MPP?
(13:03) What to Be Wary Of
(15:15) Where Stablecoins Win — Payouts, Remittances, DoorDash
MICHAEL BLAU — CTO, Royal
(16:36) Meet Michael
(17:13) From Magician to a16z Crypto to CTO
(17:57) Team Over Idea — His a16z Takeaway
(18:26) "The Demand Side Is Virtually Nonexistent"
(19:03) Closing