MoonPay has launched PayBox, a new payment vault that enables artificial intelligence agents to make purchases using stored cryptocurrency wallets and payment cards. The product integrates with AI chatbots like Claude and ChatGPT, representing a significant advancement in allowing AI to execute financial transactions.
PayBox acts as a secure repository for users’ crypto wallets and payment cards. Through its integration with AI chatbots, AI agents can now initiate and complete purchases on behalf of users, contingent on the user approving the transaction via a passkey. This capability extends beyond the previous functionality where AI chatbots could only assist with researching and planning purchases.
“Billions of AI agents are coming online, and every one of them will need to hold, move, and spend money safely,” the company stated. PayBox aims to resolve the trade-off between convenience and control often found in existing solutions, which typically require users to grant full custody of funds to a single party for autonomous transactions.
According to MoonPay, PayBox is designed so that no single entity, including MoonPay or the AI agent, can unilaterally access a user’s funds or credentials. This security is bolstered by technology from Sodot, acquired by MoonPay for approximately $100 million in April. Sodot’s technology reportedly secures over $50 billion in assets and more than 10 million wallets.
The security architecture of PayBox employs multi-party computation (MPC) to split wallet keys and trusted execution environments (TEEs) to store fragments of these keys, ensuring that no single entity holds complete wallet keys.
For card payments, PayBox routes transactions through Visa’s agentic commerce protocol. This integration allows AI to process payments without direct access to sensitive card numbers, thereby mitigating the risk of credential leaks.
At its launch, PayBox supports Solana and seven Ethereum-compatible chains, in addition to x402, an open payment protocol, to facilitate a wide range of transactions.
This release follows a series of related developments from MoonPay, including an open wallet standard for AI agents in March, an app for buying crypto within ChatGPT in May, and a desktop app connecting Claude and Codex to crypto wallets in June.
While specific transaction limits and the full roster of integrated retailers are not yet detailed, the introduction of PayBox signifies a move towards AI agents participating more directly in commerce. The company has emphasized that users retain control through passkey approval for AI-initiated spending.
Uncertainties remain regarding the precise launch date of ‘today,’ the specific monetary limits for AI agents, and the full range of services and retailers that may be integrated with PayBox.
Why This Matters
The materials describe a narrow update: MoonPay has released PayBox, a new product that functions as a payment vault. The exact date of the ‘today’ launch.
Broader Context
Source materials place the factual news in this context: MoonPay Ventures is an investor in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company.
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