Coinbase's Base has launched a Payments Model Context Protocol server — a tool that lets AI assistants like ChatGPT interact directly with crypto wallets and DeFi applications on behalf of users. The integration allows AI agents to check balances, send tokens, interact with DeFi protocols, and manage onchain assets through natural language commands without the user needing to navigate a wallet interface manually. It builds on Base's x402 payment protocol, which now has roughly 69,000 active AI agents and 167 million transactions settled. The MCP server currently integrates with Claude, Gemini, Codex, and Cherry Studio; ChatGPT support is planned but blocked by a technical incompatibility with OpenAI's current streaming transport. The launch advances Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's prediction that AI agents will become the dominant users of crypto infrastructure — transacting autonomously at a scale no human user population could match.
Trump's weekend announcement of an imminent Middle East peace agreement sent oil prices and bond yields sharply lower Monday, lifting equities and chip stocks — but not bitcoin. BTC is trading at $76,800, down nearly 1% on the day, as traders route capital into AI-related plays and await the SpaceX and OpenAI mega-IPOs rather than rotating into crypto. Micron surged 17% after UBS raised its price target to $1,625. The divergence is notable: Iran peace hopes have historically been a tailwind for bitcoin as a risk asset, but this rally has crypto watching from the sidelines as the Polymarket contract for a U.S.-Iran deal by May 31 sits at 62% odds. Spot crypto volumes fell 14% to $1.05 trillion in April — the lowest since November 2023 — and total exchange volume has declined for four straight months.
Ondo Finance announced Monday the unexpected passing of its founder and CEO Nathan Allman. No cause of death was disclosed, and the company said Allman's family has requested privacy. A Brown University and Stanford MBA graduate, Allman built Ondo from a 2021 founding into one of the most consequential platforms in tokenized real-world assets — growing to $3.79 billion in TVL across 13 blockchains, with flagship products including USDY, a yield-bearing stablecoin, and OUSG, a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund. Before Ondo, he worked on Goldman Sachs's digital assets team. Ian De Bode, Ondo's longtime president who has overseen strategy, product, and daily operations, has assumed the role of CEO. "We will continue building what Nate started," the company wrote. "That is the most meaningful way we know to honor him." Tributes from across the crypto community, including Aave's Stani Kulechov and Compound's Robert Leshner, reflected the esteem in which Allman was held as a builder at the serious intersection of Wall Street and Web3.
