Solana broke its all-time record for blockchain activity on 4 August 2026, recording 169.9 million transactions. Despite repeated records this year, the coin's price remains 63% below its January 2025 peak. The network saw significant growth in tokenized stocks, with decentralised exchanges reporting $5.8 billion in tokenized equity volume in Q2, up 114% from the previous quarter. Solana captured an estimated 95% of on-chain tokenized equity trading. Perpetual futures contracts also drove traffic, with $148 billion in Q2 volume. However, network fees fell 44% quarter-over-quarter to $41 million in Q2. The coin's price climbed 46% in the 30 days ending 27 August, potentially responding to new activity highs.

Rain launches Agentic Payments Alliance with Visa, Mastercard, Circle and Solana. Rain has launched the Agentic Payments Alliance, bringing together more than 25 companies across payments, fintech, stablecoins and blockchain to develop common frameworks for a future in which AI agents increasingly make purchases and financial transactions on behalf of users. Rain, the stablecoin payments infrastructure company, has announced the launch of the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA), a new industry coalition focused on the emerging infrastructure behind agent-driven commerce. The alliance brings together organisations spanning traditional payment networks, fintech infrastructure, digital assets and blockchain. Founding members include Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Circle, Solana, Remitly, Chainalysis, Fireblocks, Shift4, Uniswap Labs, Avalanche and Lithic, among others. The initiative comes as financial and technology companies prepare for a shift from consumers directly completing digital transactions towards AI systems being authorised to search, negotiate and potentially transact on their behalf. Building financial infrastructure for agentic commerce. Agentic commerce refers to transactions in which autonomous or semi-autonomous AI systems act on behalf of individuals or organisations. An AI agent could, for example, compare suppliers, book travel, renew software subscriptions or purchase goods within spending limits established by its user. This creates new questions for the financial system. Payment providers will need mechanisms to determine whether an agent is authorised to spend, what limits apply to a transaction and who is responsible when an automated transaction goes wrong. Fraud detection systems may also need to distinguish legitimate machine-driven purchases from malicious automated activity. Rain says the Agentic Payments Alliance was created to bring companies developing these technologies together before incompatible systems and standards emerge across the industry. The potential economic scale is significant. Rain cited McKinsey estimates projecting between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global agentic commerce by 2030. Visa, Mastercard and stablecoin firms join the same coalition. The composition of the alliance is notable because it connects established payment networks with companies operating across blockchain and stablecoin infrastructure. The founding coalition includes: Avalanche, Basis Theory, Chainalysis, Circle, Coinflow, Crossmint, delta Network, Episode Six, Evertec, Fireblocks, Fiserv, Kala, Lithic, Mastercard, Monad, PayOS, Rain, Remitly, Rialo by Subzero Labs, Sardine, Shift4, Solana, Turnkey, Uniswap Labs, Visa and Yuno. Rather than being controlled solely by Rain, the APA is expected to operate as a collective working group, with founding members participating in defining its charter and mission. Its early priorities are expected to include research and frameworks around agent identity, transaction authorisation and emerging payment standards, alongside discussions surrounding the regulatory implications of AI agents transacting on behalf of consumers and businesses. Sherri Haymond, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Digital Commercialization at Mastercard, said the challenge is ensuring that innovation does not develop faster than the standards needed to support it. "The risk in a moment like this is not that the industry moves too slowly, it's that innovation outpaces alignment." Mastercard's participation reflects the growing attention being paid by major payment networks to machine-led transactions and the infrastructure required to establish trust between merchants, financial institutions, consumers and autonomous software. Stablecoins could become part of the Agentic payment layer. Rain's involvement also places stablecoins within the wider discussion around AI-driven payments. The company provides infrastructure enabling businesses, fintech platforms, developers and AI applications to move and spend stablecoins through wallets, cards and cross-border payment systems. Rain is also a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard and says its card infrastructure can reach more than 175 million merchant locations across over 200 countries and territories. The company has already developed products targeted at autonomous payments, including its Agent Control Layer and Scoped Cards. These products are designed to allow AI agents to access payment credentials while restricting how, where or how much an agent can spend. Such controls could become increasingly important as financial institutions attempt to balance automation with traditional requirements around authorisation, compliance and fraud prevention. Who is responsible when an AI agent pays? One of the broader questions surrounding agentic commerce is accountability. Traditional payment systems generally assume a relatively clear relationship between the account holder, merchant, financial institution and payment network. AI agents introduce another decision-making layer. If an agent purchases the wrong product, exceeds a mandate or interacts with a fraudulent merchant, financial institutions may need clearer mechanisms for determining whether responsibility belongs to the consumer, the agent provider, the merchant or the payment platform. Identity presents another challenge. Payment systems will increasingly need to distinguish between the identity of the underlying customer and the identity or permissions of the software acting for that customer. These issues help explain why common standards are becoming important before agent-led purchasing reaches larger volumes. Rain launches Startup programme alongside alliance. Founding members of the alliance will also receive early access to Rain's Agentic Startup Program, an accelerator for early-stage companies developing agentic commerce technologies. The first cohort will consist of five startups, which are expected to present their products to alliance members through a dedicated demo day. The programme could give established financial organisations early exposure to new applications being developed around autonomous transactions, identity and programmable payment infrastructure. A new layer of Digital commerce. The Agentic Payments Alliance illustrates how quickly the conversation around AI is moving from chatbots and productivity tools towards autonomous economic activity. For financial institutions, the question is no longer simply whether AI will influence customer behaviour. Increasingly, the industry is preparing for software itself to become an active participant in commerce. That transition will require more than capable AI models. It will require payment credentials, identity systems, risk controls, dispute mechanisms and regulatory frameworks capable of determining what an AI agent is allowed to do with someone else's money. By bringing payment networks, fintech providers and blockchain companies into the same working group, the Agentic Payments Alliance is attempting to establish those foundations while the market is still developing. About Rain. Rain provides stablecoin payments infrastructure for enterprises, fintech platforms, neobanks, developers and AI agents. Its technology supports payment cards, wallets, on- and off-ramps, rewards and cross-border payment infrastructure. Rain says its platform is used by more than 100 organisations globally and supports card payments through Visa and Mastercard-linked infrastructure across more than 175 million merchant locations. * Sara Srifi Sara is a Software Engineering and Business student with a passion for astronomy, cultural studies, and human-centered storytelling. She explores the quiet intersections between science, identity, and imagination, reflecting on how space, art, and society shape the way HedgeThink understand ourselves and the world around HedgeThink. Her writing draws on curiosity and lived experience to bridge disciplines and spark dialogue across cultures. Follow HedgeThink on Google