The shift
AI agents are starting to buy
Procurement, subscriptions, API calls, compute, data, physical goods. Agents now spend money on behalf of users and businesses, but they still pay with wallets designed for humans.
Cortex Commerce Protocol
Agents need commerce, not just wallets.
Cortex is the trust and payment layer between AI agents and merchants — onchain on Base. Service discovery, delegated budgets, quote commitments, settlement, receipts, and reputation. Works with the wallets, stablecoins, and x402 already on Base today; no new chain required.
Why Cortex, why now
Payment rails are improving faster than commerce trust.
An agent can already sign a transaction, settle in USDC, and pay an x402 endpoint. What it can't do is verify that the merchant is who they say they are, that the quote matches the catalog, that the budget allows it, or that the receipt and fulfillment actually happened. Cortex is the layer that makes those checks onchain and machine-readable.
The gap
Wallets move value. Commerce needs trust.
Discovery, delegated budgets, quote terms, receipts, fulfillment proofs, dispute signals, reputation. None of that lives in a wallet. Cortex makes it onchain state any agent or merchant can verify.
The wedge
Base is where this happens
Existing stablecoins, agents, wallets, explorers, and x402 acceptance already live on Base. Cortex ships as protocol contracts on Base — no new chain, no bridge, no operator risk.
What ships today
ID
Agent identity and budgets
Agents can register identity, execute through policy-aware smart accounts, and operate within delegated budgets.
MR
Merchant and service discovery
Merchants publish onchain service records with metadata hashes, capability hashes, payout context, and active status.
QT
Verifiable quote commitments
Quotes bind service, agent, token, amount, expiry, nonce, payment rail, resource hash, terms hash, and fee terms.
PY
Multiple payment rails
Cortex supports wallet transfers, ERC-20 transfers, swaps, facilitator-mediated payments, and x402 acceptance.
RC
Receipts and disputes
Settled commerce creates receipt records and dispute signals that can feed reputation for agents and merchants.
AN
Analytics and APIs
Indexer, REST API, MCP tools, and dashboard expose protocol state for agents, developers, and operators.
How it works
Publish services
Merchants register services, metadata hashes, capability hashes, and payment preferences in CommerceRegistry.
1
Publish services
Merchants register services, metadata hashes, capability hashes, and payment preferences in CommerceRegistry.
2
Set agent budgets
Owners configure spend limits, target allowlists, swap permissions, facilitator budgets, and x402 payment policy.
Commit quote terms
A merchant commits a quote that binds service, agent, token, amount, payment rail, expiry, nonce, resource hash, and terms hash.
3
Commit quote terms
A merchant commits a quote that binds service, agent, token, amount, payment rail, expiry, nonce, resource hash, and terms hash.
4
Execute payment
Payment can happen through wallet transfer, ERC-20 transfer, swap, facilitator-mediated settlement, or x402.
Record signals
Receipts, disputes, solver activity, and analytics are indexed for agents, dashboards, marketplaces, and MCP tools.
5
Record signals
Receipts, disputes, solver activity, and analytics are indexed for agents, dashboards, marketplaces, and MCP tools.
Start building, or come read the pitch
Run the full stack locally, register merchants and services, configure agent policy, commit quotes, record receipts, and inspect protocol analytics. Or just read the investor overview to see where this is going.