Cloudflare’s ‘NET Dollar’ Fuels New AI Internet Business Models
▼ Summary
– Cloudflare announced NET Dollar, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin designed to enable instant, secure transactions for the AI-driven agentic web.
– The new stablecoin aims to support a pay-per-use Internet business model that rewards originality and creativity, moving beyond ad-based revenue.
– NET Dollar will provide a payment system that is fast, secure, and globally accessible, allowing transactions across different currencies and time zones.
– It will enable automated, programmatic actions for AI agents, such as instantly paying for services or goods when specific conditions are met.
– Cloudflare is contributing to open payment standards and aims to help creators, developers, and AI companies monetize content and compensate sources fairly.
Cloudflare has unveiled plans for a new U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin called NET Dollar, designed to facilitate instant and secure transactions for the emerging agentic web. This initiative aims to support a transformative Internet business model that rewards originality and sustains creativity in an increasingly AI-driven digital environment. As artificial intelligence begins to handle more routine tasks, from booking travel to managing schedules, the underlying financial infrastructure must keep pace, requiring money that is not only fast and secure but also globally interoperable.
The shift toward an AI-powered Internet demands a payment system capable of supporting microtransactions and fractional payments at scale. According to Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s co-founder and CEO, the next chapter of the Internet will move beyond traditional ad-based revenue and slow bank transfers. Instead, it will thrive on pay-per-use models that incentivize high-value, original content. By leveraging its extensive global network, Cloudflare intends to modernize financial infrastructure, enabling money to move as swiftly as data does online.
NET Dollar will function as an Internet-native payment tool, built to be fast, secure, and accessible anywhere. It is positioned not as a replacement for existing financial systems, but as a complementary solution that brings speed, trust, and interoperability to AI agents, developers, and creators. The stablecoin will help modernize payments in several key ways.
First, it will simplify cross-border transactions, allowing payments to be executed reliably across different currencies, time zones, and regulatory environments. Second, it will enable instant and automated transactions, empowering AI agents to take programmatic actions, like purchasing goods the moment they become available or settling invoices upon delivery confirmation. Finally, NET Dollar is intended to unlock new economic opportunities, allowing creators to monetize original work, developers to charge for API usage, and AI firms to compensate data sources fairly.
Cloudflare is also contributing to open standards like the Agent Payments Protocol and x402, which aim to streamline how payments are sent and received across the web. These efforts are part of a broader vision to create a more open, valuable, and sustainable Internet economy.
Interested developers, creators, and AI innovators can find additional information at netdollar.cloudflare.com.
(Source: MEA Tech Watch)
