The 4 Things That Need to Happen Before AI Agents Can Actually Spend Money | An Agentic Payments Explainer
On our first episode of Strata Research presented by Talking Tokens & Token Relations, Jacquelyn sits down with Institutional Research Analyst Alex Beaudry to breakdown agentic payments. Alex walks through why it isn't one market but three distinct payment flows, each with completely different infrastructure requirements, and why the machine-to-machine category is where stablecoins have a real structural edge over traditional rails. They also get into the four things that actually need to happen before this market scales, and why the narrative is still running well ahead of the transaction volumes to back it up.
Check out the associated newsletter for more details: https://www.token-relations.com/p/agentic-payments-where-we-are-and-where-we-re-going
TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction Strata Research 01:24 Understanding Agentic Payments 04:54 The Flows of Agentic Payments 07:24 Challenges and Frameworks for Scaling 11:39 Recent Developments and Future Outlook
You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review — it really helps. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TalkingTokens Follow us on X Jacquelyn: / jacqmelinek Talking Tokens: / _talkingtokens Follow us on Instagram / _talkingtokens Note: This podcast is for informational purposes only. Views shared are opinions, not financial advice. The host or guests may have financial interests in discussed content.
The 4 Things That Need to Happen Before AI Agents Can Actually Spend Money | An Agentic Payments Explainer
Subscribe & Listen
USDT0's Co-Founder on Moving $90B Cross-Chain, the Agent Economy, and Tether's Untouchable Moat
What Wall Street Actually Wants from Crypto | Bart Smith & Laine Litman
More from Talking Tokens
Why Grove Is Betting Billions on Onchain Credit | Kevin Chan
In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Kevin Chan, co-founder and CTO of Grove Labs, the team behind Grove Protocol, to discuss how Grove is building infrastructure for institutional credit and modern capital markets. Kevin breaks down how Grove has scaled its credit platform, how the protocol connects stablecoin liquidity with traditional and emerging forms of credit, and what it will take to bring significantly more institutional capital onchain. They also discuss Grove's work across the Sky ecosystem, relationships with institutions such as BlackRock, the role of Morpho and Coinbase in expanding access to borrowing, and why new credit markets like AI compute financing could become a major opportunity. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:32 Why Grove Was Built 03:30 What Financial Institutions Actually Want 05:29 How Grove Grew From $50M to $2.5B 06:55 The Sky Ecosystem Flywheel 08:10 The Opportunity in Onchain Credit 10:08 How Credit Markets Could Change 11:57 Why Credit Adoption Takes Time 12:21 Building Trust Through Transparency 14:16 What It Takes to Bring Trillions in Credit Onchain 17:01 Where Blockchain Can Expand Access to Credit 20:25 Bringing Onchain Credit to Retail 22:26 Making Credit More Accessible 24:38 Why AI Compute Financing Could Be Next 27:07 What Will Bring Institutions Onchain 28:39 Will Onchain Credit Compete With Banks? 30:36 What Will Separate the Winning Credit Protocols 33:05 Kevin's Advice for Builders This episode is sponsored by Forgd, visit its Market Maker Leaderboard on Token Relations here: www.stratamedia.co/token-relations/leaderboard Today’s episode is sponsored by Anchorage Digital, America's first federally chartered digital asset bank and provider of regulated stablecoin issuance. To find out more, visit anchorage.com New episodes every week https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 Follow Jacquelyn Melinek https://x.com/jacqmelinek?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelynmelinek https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/talking-tokens-crypto-onchain-finance-investing/id1743669141 https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ Follow Kevin Chan https://x.com/kevinlichan https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinchan1207
What Happens When the World’s Assets Move Onchain?
In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Gregg Bell, Chief Investment Officer at Hashgraph, to discuss what institutional blockchain adoption of Hedera actually looks like and why some of the most important enterprise use cases may be happening outside the crypto headlines. Gregg breaks down how Hedera is being used across industries, why tokenization extends far beyond stocks and securities, and how moving assets onchain can unlock greater mobility, programmability and new forms of collateral. They explore real-world assets, enterprise adoption, supply chains, tokenized real estate, digital identity, interoperability and the infrastructure required to support global financial markets. Also explains why institutional adoption takes longer than retail adoption, how regulatory clarity is changing the risk calculus for enterprises, the role of HBAR within the Hedera ecosystem, and why actual network usage not hype is ultimately the measure of success. Timestamps: 00:10 Gregg Bell's journey into crypto 01:06 From Bitcoin lending to onchain assets 01:53 How blockchain's user base is changing 03:06 How enterprises and governments use blockchain 04:58 Tokenizing assets beyond securities 06:28 When will more assets move onchain? 08:01 What institutional adoption actually looks like 10:19 Enterprise blockchain happening behind the scenes 12:57 Why the first wave of enterprise adoption struggled 16:09 Public, private and hybrid blockchain infrastructure 17:49 Are institutions finally comfortable with blockchain? 18:56 The role of HBAR in Hedera's ecosystem 21:11 What financial-grade blockchain infrastructure requires 23:05 Who captures the value from tokenization? 23:47 Are we entering a new era of financial access? 24:28 What success looks like for Hedera This episode is sponsored by Forgd, visit its Market Maker Leaderboard on Token Relations here: www.stratamedia.co/token-relations/leaderboard Today’s episode is sponsored by Anchorage Digital, America's first federally chartered digital asset bank and provider of regulated stablecoin issuance. To find out more, visit anchorage.com New episodes every week https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 Follow us Jacquelyn on X: /jacqmelinek Talking Tokens on X: /_talkingtokens Talking Tokens on Instagram: /_talkingtokens Follow Gregg Bell https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregg-bell-38b5389
Why Stellar Thinks Its $4B Tokenization Milestone Is Just the Beginning
In today's episode of Talking Tokens, Jacquelyn sits down with Raja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, to discuss why the next phase of tokenization is about more than simply bringing assets onchain and how Stellar is building infrastructure for a more connected global financial system. Raja breaks down Stellar's growth from roughly $1 billion to $4 billion in tokenized real-world assets since January, why capital efficiency is one of blockchain's biggest potential unlocks, and what needs to happen after an asset is tokenized for it to become genuinely useful. They discuss Stellar's work with DTCC, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree and MoneyGram, the arrival of Tether's USD₮0 on Stellar, and why stablecoins have found product-market fit for global money movement. Raja also explains why distribution and circulation could define the next wave of tokenization, how financial institutions are moving assets onchain, and why better access to financial services remains central to Stellar's mission. Timestamps 00:00 Raja Chakravorti's journey from banking to blockchain 05:17 Why access to financial services matters 08:04 What working at PayPal and Plaid taught Raja about financial infrastructure 10:31 The promise of moving financial assets onchain 11:23 What blockchain can solve for financial markets 13:19 Stellar crossing $4B in tokenized real-world assets 16:43 How big can tokenization get? 18:04 Should everything be tokenized? 18:49 Why DTCC is bringing assets to Stellar 21:54 Why financial institutions are choosing Stellar 24:32 Tether and USD₮0 come to Stellar 25:57 Why stablecoins matter for Stellar 27:49 The next frontier for tokenization 30:14 Building global financial access 32:30 What success looks like for Stellar New episodes every week https://open.spotify.com/show/0LOgWxIQ0NnNUD5eXsSuoZ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-tokens/id1743669141 Follow us Jacquelyn on X: /jacqmelinek Talking Tokens on X: /_talkingtokens Talking Tokens on Instagram: /_talkingtokens Follow Raja Chakravorti https://x.com/rajachak75 https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajachakravorti Today’s episode is sponsored by Anchorage Digital, America's first federally chartered digital asset bank and provider of regulated stablecoin issuance. To find out more, visit anchorage.com