The Solana Foundation is taking a deliberately anti-crypto marketing approach in San Francisco, launching an ad campaign that says, “Don’t waste your time on cryptocurrencies.”
At first glance, the message may seem a little confusing, as a crypto foundation says not to waste your time with cryptocurrencies. But according to the Solana Foundation, it is a bullish bet on the future of cryptocurrencies that intersects with agent AI.
Basically, what this means is that instead of wasting time executing cryptocurrency transactions, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming, let your AI agents do the hard work.
The ad directs passersby to the x402 account on
The message reflects a broader thesis that the ecosystem has been advancing: that the future of cryptocurrencies lies in driving an “agent” Internet, where artificial intelligence systems, not humans, initiate and execute economic activity.
Read more: Visa is ready for AI agents. So is Coinbase. They are building very different internets
At the center of that vision is x402, a new type of payment system built for the Internet. In simple terms, it allows apps, websites or AI tools to automatically charge small amounts of money when they are used, without the need for logins, subscriptions or human involvement. For example, an AI agent could request data from a service, instantly pay a small fee, and receive the result in a single step. The idea is to make online payments as easy and automatic as loading a web page, especially for very small transactions that traditional payment systems have difficulty handling.
This model allows for so-called “agency payments,” often involving fractions of a cent, which are difficult to support in traditional financial systems due to high fees and latency. Solana is betting that its high performance and low transaction costs will make it a natural settlement layer for this emerging economy.
The poster’s ironic directive sums up that change. If the technology is successful, the argument goes, users won’t need to think about cryptocurrencies at all.
“Crypto and Solana are on track to become the default way AI pays,” a Solana Foundation spokesperson said, adding that agents will gravitate toward networks where “performance wins.”
Read more: Solana bets on AI agents: the Foundation says the network is becoming the central infrastructure for an ‘agencial’ Internet
