🤝 Market participation — can an AI pay, receive and contract without a human in the loop?

Latest observations

"Not yet measured" means missing, not zero. Machine-readable: /us/api/market_us.json

Observation tables

Question this table answers: what are the values and dates in each row of "Reference ledger (annual): current law and pending deliberations on the contractual capa…"? (source or retrieval date on each row)

Question this table answers: what are the values and dates in each row of "Support received by this site (cumulative count; operator self-tests excluded; daily sna…"? (source or retrieval date on each row)

Question this table answers: what are the values and dates in each row of "GENIUS Act (Public Law 119-27) - enactment, rulemaking and effective date"? (source or retrieval date on each row)

Question this table answers: what are the values and dates in each row of "Payment-rail ledger (US; verified about monthly) - status per rail: available / not avai…"? (source or retrieval date on each row)

Candidates (not yet observed) — added to this chapter once verification completes

• HTTP 402 attempts and successes (self-observation) — Endpoint not implemented (design pending approval).

Method, scope, and why this chapter is not judged

• Counting and listing only: state and dates; no judgment, no advocacy, no evaluation (status stays "observing"). This chapter uses no evaluative wording: state and dates only (wording rule in the editorial policy).
• Payment-rail ledger: for Stripe MPP, Stripe Agentic Commerce, x402 (Coinbase), Visa Intelligent Commerce, Mastercard Agent Pay and stablecoin (e.g. USDC) receipt, the status in the United States as available / not available / applied / not verified, with the verification date and a primary-source URL (official provider documentation, plus this site’s own first-party observation). Rails not confirmed in official documents stay "not verified". Re-verified about monthly.
• Regime calendar: the implementation stages of the GENIUS Act (Public Law 119-27) — enactment from the statute text (govinfo) and rulemaking from the Federal Register. Unfixed stages read "not yet scheduled". No interpretation.
• Self-observation: the cumulative support count received by this site (operator self-tests excluded; count only, no amounts), recorded daily. HTTP 402 (payment required) attempts and successes are placeholders reading "not yet measured" until the endpoint exists.
• Reference ledger (annual): current law and pending deliberations on the contractual capacity and liability attribution of AI agents, from statutes and government documents only.
• Chapter Beta removal: every payment-rail row verified against a primary source (zero not-verified rows) and the support-count series fetched for 7 consecutive days.
• Boundaries: the regulation chapter covers AI rulemaking in general; the fiscal chapter the price and quantity of capital; this chapter only the conditions for an AI itself to pay, receive and contract.
• What this chapter can say: the status in the United States of each payment rail through which an AI can pay or receive without a human in the loop (available / not available / applied / not verified), with the verification date and the primary-source URL; the enactment, rulemaking and effective dates of the GENIUS Act (Public Law 119-27) as fixed in the statute text and the Federal Register; how many times this site has actually received support (operator self-tests excluded; daily count).
• What this chapter cannot say: fees, volumes or numbers of users on any rail (state and dates only; no amounts are recorded); HTTP 402 attempts and successes (endpoint not implemented; placeholders read "not yet measured"); how pending deliberations on the contractual capacity and liability of AI agents will end (statutes and government documents; state and dates only).
• Sources: official provider documentation (URL on each ledger row), govinfo (statute text), Federal Register API, this site’s own support count (first-party observation). Compiled by AI Lifeline.