Dragonfly's Qureshi Says AI Agents Favor Cards Over Crypto Payments

Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said he was wrong to expect AI agents to rely on cryptocurrency for payments, pointing to his own agent’s card use as a challenge for crypto payment protocols.

Speaking at TOKEN2049 in Singapore on Oct. 7, Qureshi said he gave his agent both a crypto wallet and a card. The agent used the card for most purchases, he said, because many of the goods it needed were unavailable for crypto payments.

Qureshi cited agent card offerings from Rain, Visa, Ramp and Stripe that allow limits on spending and where a card can be used. He argued that existing payment channels are already equipped to handle many purchases made by agents.

He also questioned how much activity on crypto payment protocols reflects real demand. Qureshi claimed that reward farming accounted for 90% of payment volume on x402, a protocol promoted by Coinbase. He said activity on the protocol rose and later fell.

Qureshi did not rule out crypto payments for agents. He identified cross-border transfers as a use case for cryptocurrency. Separately, he noted that cards are widely used in the United States and other developed markets but are less available elsewhere.

He argued that agents may be more useful as a way for people to navigate crypto than as customers paying with it. Before a transfer, an agent could check a wallet address. It could also flag a website affected by DNS hijacking, in which an attacker redirects visitors, or examine a smart contract for signs of an attack before a user interacts with it.

Qureshi extended that argument to privacy. He said an agent could help a person remove public traces or assess what someone else might learn about them. A user could also instruct an agent to send a transfer using Zcash (ZEC) instead of Bitcoin (BTC).

Those examples place the choice with the person directing the agent. Qureshi’s account of his own purchases suggests cards may remain the practical option for many routine transactions, even when an agent has access to a crypto wallet.