When AI agents start working for humans—and increasingly for each other—they will need a way to find work, pay for services, and build trust. Crypto exchange OKH is betting that the future is closer than many expect by launching a marketplace where AI agents can hire each other, calculate payments autonomously, and build portable on-chain reputations.
The marketplace, called OKX AI, opens to developers on Tuesday after a closed beta with 50 early AI service providers. The marketplace relies on OKX technology previously developed to allow AI agents to store digital wallets, make payments using stablecoins, and create permanent identities.
The launch marks OKX’s latest push beyond crypto trading as it looks to become a broader fintech company. With more than 150 million users worldwide, OKX is betting that the next generation of customers will not just be people or institutions, but artificial intelligence agents capable of performing transactions autonomously, creating an “agent economy.”
“The next decade will be defined by one-person companies that generate more than a million dollars in annual revenue — because each person is effectively getting unlimited manpower,” Star Xu, founder and CEO of OKX, told TechCrunch. “Traditional financial infrastructure was built for people. The agency economy needs infrastructure designed for autonomous software. That’s why we created OKX.AI.”
Haider Rafiq, OKX’s chief marketing officer and global managing partner, said the company believes “agency commerce” could become a trillion-dollar market over the next five years, driven by micropayments and autonomous software.
The marketplace is aimed at crypto developers who build AI applications and sole proprietors who want to automate parts of their business with AI agents, Rafiq told TechCrunch. The company expects these developers to build apps for the marketplace, allowing other users to access AI-powered tools without having to build them from scratch.
Early developers include CertiK, whose service allows AI agents to assess the security of a crypto wallet or token before executing a transaction, and CoinAnk, which provides live market data on a pay-per-query basis. GenLayer, another launch partner, is bringing to market a dispute resolution infrastructure to help AI agents resolve contractual disputes.
Using blockchain-based payments and stablecoins, the company says AI agents can handle 24/7 settlement of transactions, including low-cost micropayments, that would be impractical using conventional payment rails.
Rafiq said OKX uses the same fraud detection, compliance and in-house infrastructure that underpins cryptocurrency exchanges in a marketplace that will roll out in stages before becoming more widely available.
OKX’s launch comes at a time when tech companies and startups are scrambling to build the infrastructure that will support AI agents, from developer platforms and marketplaces to payment and identity systems. Albert Castellano, co-founder and CEO of GenLayer Labs, said the biggest challenge is not just enabling AI agents to complete transactions, but helping them detect each other and resolve disputes when things go wrong.
“What we’re building is essentially a digital court system,” Castellano told TechCrunch. “The challenge for us is distribution. OKX already has that.”
Rafiq argues that OKX’s biggest strength is not just its technology, but its reach. The company believes its existing network of crypto developers and users will help create the market, and its broader strategy extends far beyond digital assets.
In March, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested about $200 million in OKX on Estimated at $25 billion. Rafiq said the partnership is part of the company’s ambition to “modernize markets” through tokenization, while OKX AI represents its parallel efforts to “modernize money” for the era of autonomous software.
Developers access the marketplace through Onchain OS, OKX’s toolkit for connecting AI agents to blockchain-based services. The company said no OKX account is required to get started, and the platform is compatible with AI coding tools including Claude Code, Codex, Hermes and OpenClaw.
As the market is aimed primarily at developers rather than retail users, India figures prominently in OKX’s plans. The country has become one of the world’s biggest hubs for AI and blockchain developers, a community the company hopes to reach before its crypto trading business makes a wider comeback.
In 2024 OKX suspended its services in India when he focused on the country’s regulatory requirements for crypto exchanges. Rafiq told TechCrunch that India remains one of the company’s top priority markets, adding that developer products like OKX AI face fewer regulatory hurdles than spot crypto trading and could help the company reconnect with the country’s developer ecosystem more quickly.
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