Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong predicts that stablecoins combined with AI-driven payment methods, particularly through Coinbase's x402 payment protocol launched in May 2025, will revolutionize internet content payment models and end the current subscription economy era. He believes that in the future, consumers will be able to use AI agents to make micropayments with stablecoins for single articles or other digital services, rather than being forced into monthly subscriptions. Coinbase partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in June this year, enabling publishers using AWS CloudFront and Web Application Firewall to monetize requests from AI agents via the x402 protocol; Cloudflare also launched a closed beta of its x402-enabled monetization gateway in September.