We are moving towards an economic system where software and devices transact with each other without human involvement.
Instead of simply executing transactions, machines will be able to make decisions, coordinate with each other, and buy what they need in real time. Sensors and satellites sell data streams on a second-by-second basis. Factories set prices for power purchases in real time based on supply and demand. Supply chains can also become completely autonomous, reordering materials, booking transportation, paying customs duties, and rerouting shipments without human intervention.
But such an economy cannot survive on large, infrequent payments. It needs to run in billions of small continuous transactions that run autonomously at machine speed. Just as electricity pricing made mass production possible, microtransactions and machine-to-machine (M2M) payments make full automation economically viable.
And if continuous M2M payments are the new power, then blockchain – the rails on which these microtransactions occur – must be seen as the new power grid. These are the critical infrastructures that will enable new business models, new technologies, and ultimately this new machine economy.
How will these innovations develop? There are many lessons from the electric revolution.
new revolution
Before electrification, electricity was local, manual, inconsistent, and expensive. Factories relied on steam engines and water wheels, which limited the location and scale of production. Power was something to build into each operation.
Electricity changed that. Once electricity became standardized and readily available, it ceased to be a function and became the foundation of modern industry.
Today’s payments are still similar to the pre-electricity era. These are temporary, typically processed in batches, and heavily mediated by humans and organizations. Even digital payments involve separate events such as invoices, settlements, reconciliations, and billing cycles.
But M2M payments (autonomous financial transactions between connected devices), when combined with microtransactions (worth a few cents), turn value exchange into something ambient and infrastructure-like. Rather than stopping to pay, machines can simply operate continuously, exchanging value while consuming resources or providing services.
Technology leaders have been talking about microtransactions since the early days of the internet, but the current banking system has made it impossible to realize that vision. Blockchain technology now allows value to be sent instantly around the world at almost no cost. The infrastructure of the crypto sector is the basis for the birth of continuous M2M payments.
And just as electricity enabled the creation of computers and the internet, M2M payments and microtransactions will enable a whole new economy to flourish.
How electricity changed the world
The continuous power provided by electricity has made automation possible. Mass production was not because factories hired more workers, but because machines could always operate relatively independently.
Today’s machines are technically autonomous but economically constrained. AI agents can make decisions, route traffic, and optimize logistics, but they can’t pay for computing on the fly. Economic frictions force human intervention into independent systems. But M2M payments combined with microtransactions provide continuous economic power, just as electricity provides continuous mechanical power.
Electricity also enabled industries that could not exist before. M2M payments have similar properties, providing economic infrastructure for industries that cannot function without granular, real-time payments.
what does it look like? Autonomous supply chains could become a reality, where machines continuously coordinate purchases and logistics. Alternatively, AI services may emerge with pricing models that reflect inference times in milliseconds. Global data markets are likely to rely on pay-per-byte access. The infrastructure itself, from roads to charging stations, will be able to continuously and automatically set the price of access.
It is worth noting that the move to usage-based pricing has also changed the electricity business model. Paying per kilowatt hour allowed companies to scale without renegotiating contracts or investing in fixed capacity. I paid for what I used when I used it. M2M payments offer similar flexibility for 21st century businesses.
Lessons learned from the electric revolution
In the early days of electrification, the focus was primarily on the development of generators. But that wasn’t the most important innovation. What was important was communication. Only when electricity could be delivered everywhere, cheaply, and predictably, industry and society were restructured.
The same lesson applies to M2M payments. The blockchain rails on which payments are made are much more important than the specific M2M payment application being used (such as Coinbase’s x402 protocol). Therefore, the priority is to build the best possible blockchain: one with near-zero fees, very low latency, and predictable performance. In other words, M2M payments face the same problems as regular stablecoin payments. To function properly, the underlying infrastructure must be top-notch.
Additionally, blockchain used for machine payments should be recognized as a neutral infrastructure. These must be interoperable across vendors, jurisdictions, and machines. After all, machines can no more negotiate bespoke payment systems than equipment can negotiate voltage standards. This means that decentralization could play an important role in the growth of the machine economy. In that case, public blockchains may have an advantage over private blockchains.
If M2M payment rails can achieve this neutrality, they will become a regulation layer for autonomous systems, just as electricity is a regulation layer for physical power. At that point, innovation can safely move on to building entirely new machine-driven industries.
The machine economy will arrive when machines gain the ability to conduct continuous, autonomous, and invisible transactions thanks to the power of blockchain. M2M payments are not just a feature of the future. They are that electricity.
