Fireblocks has rejected an Axios report that Visa was in advanced talks to acquire the digital-asset infrastructure company for about $2.5 billion. Fireblocks said the reported discussions were not taking place at present. Visa declined to comment on the claim, while Coinbase separately denied reports that it was considering a bid. None of the companies has confirmed an acquisition process. The reported price would be about 69% below Fireblocks’ $8 billion valuation from its January 2022 Series E funding round. The company generated $124 million in revenue in 2024 but remained unprofitable, and it has initiated plans to cut 60 to 70 jobs amid the rumors. Visa already uses Fireblocks as an institutional client and works with it on an interoperability initiative. Those existing links provide context for the speculation, but do not establish that a transaction is under discussion.

AI agents can select products and initiate payments without a buyer present at checkout, forcing merchants and payment providers to verify delegated authority rather than a single approval. Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) uses signed mandates to record spending limits and connect instructions to a specific cart. Stripe and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol and Shared Payment Tokens, alongside Mastercard’s Agentic Token framework, support checkout with restricted credentials. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol helps merchants identify agents, while Coinbase’s x402 enables stablecoin payments through web requests, including small API charges. These tools address different risks: signatures document permission, tokens limit payment use, and records can support disputes. But compliance with a spending cap cannot prove an agent chose what its user intended. Google transferred AP2 stewardship to the FIDO Alliance in April 2026, yet consumer deployment remains early. Merchants still face integration challenges, while liability and chargeback treatment for agent errors remain unsettled.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore conducted two pilot issuances of tokenized MAS Bills settled using wholesale Singapore dollar central bank digital currency on the SGD Testnet in September and October 2026. The first issuance, on September 23, was S$1 million and matured after one week. The second was S$10 million and matures on October 23. MAS Managing Director Chia Der Jiun described the settlement initiative in an October 9 keynote at the INSEAD Digital Finance & Agentic AI Summit. The trials are limited to institutional investors and primary dealers, not retail users. They extend the SGD Testnet’s use beyond the interbank overnight lending transactions it first settled among DBS Bank, OCBC and UOB in November 2025. The pilot amounts are experimental compared with standard MAS Bill auctions, which regularly exceed S$10 billion. MAS is also consulting on amendments to the Payment Services Act for its Single-Currency Stablecoin framework, with the consultation closing on October 16.