North America’s crypto economy totaled $3.02 trillion in the 12 months through July 1, 2026, maintaining its position as the most influential region in the global crypto market, according to a Chainalysis report. The region retained that role despite a contraction in the U.S. market, while AI-agent payments, stablecoins and tokenized assets expanded.

The combined U.S. and Canadian figure fell 1.9% from the previous reporting period. The U.S. crypto economy declined 2.2% to $2.78 trillion, while Canada’s grew 2.3% to $247.7 billion.

“A lot of what we’re seeing vs. 2025 comes down to maturation of the industry. The building blocks set in 2025 are turning into products with real users, liquidity, and markets in 2026,” said Hoolie Tejwani, head of Coinbase Ventures.

AI agents execute more than 138 million transactions

Chainalysis identified agentic commerce, in which AI agents independently pay for goods and services with cryptocurrencies, as a key area of growth. By the end of the reporting period, agents had completed more than 138 million transactions on Base through x402, a Coinbase protocol for on-chain payments between applications and services.

More than 87% of x402 payments during the 16-month period studied ranged from $0.0001 to $0.10, with the most common amounts between one and 10 cents. Such microtransactions can be economically unviable for traditional payment systems.

Circle, the issuer of USDC, described the division of payment methods as: “Card rails for consumer-prompted agent payments, stablecoin rails for machine-to-machine settlements that are too small for card economics.”

Chainalysis also reported signs of repeat use. The share of wallets receiving another top-up within 30 days increased from 70.6% among wallets first funded in the third quarter of 2025 to 89.3% for the second-quarter 2026 cohort. Median time from a wallet’s first top-up to its first x402 payment fell from 73 days at the end of 2025 to 18 minutes in the third quarter of 2026. The share making a first payment within an hour of funding rose from 4% to 67% between the third quarters of 2025 and 2026.

AI agents primarily bought machine-readable information, including code analysis, financial analytics, and search and information APIs. They also paid for agent-development tools, gaming services and AI-model compute.

U.S. wallets accounted for 30% of geolocated transactions between agents and services, including 88.1% of payments for AI-model compute, 41.8% for agent tools and directories, and 23.2% for data and search APIs.

“AI agents are becoming economic actors where every agent is effectively a new ‘user’ of the blockchain,” Tejwani said.

U.S. leads stablecoin and tokenization activity

Chainalysis said the U.S. remained the leading exporter of digital dollars and became a net importer of bitcoin in 2026 for the first time since 2022, based on aggregate cross-border flows. Transfers exceeding $10 million brought 53,200 BTC into the country.

Dollar-pegged tokens accounted for 99.1% of trading volume in stablecoin order books. Circle reported $73.3 billion of USDC in circulation at the end of the quarter, up 19% year over year, while quarterly on-chain USDC transaction volume reached $14.8 trillion.

The global real-world asset market reached $36.07 billion in the second quarter of 2026, rising 135% over the reporting period. U.S. government bonds were the largest category at $15.42 billion, or 42.8% of tokenized asset value. Wintermute called real-world assets a potential driver of the crypto market’s next bull cycle.

Canadian remittances grow

Stablecoins represented 44% of trading volume in Canadian dollar-denominated order books, up from 30% a year earlier. Chainalysis said the prevalence of dollar-denominated tokens creates a risk of deeper Canadian dependence on the U.S. financial system.

“This is a trend that Canadian policy-makers are following closely,” said Morva Rohani, executive director of the Canadian Web3 Council, referring to the growing popularity of dollar stablecoins.

Stablecoin and bitcoin transfers from Canada to India, China and the Philippines totaled $2.36 billion during the reporting period, up 141% year over year. Users completed 3.56 million transactions averaging $663.

Rohani said about 23% of Canada’s population was born abroad, the highest share among Group of Seven countries. That demographic profile could encourage regular cryptocurrency remittances: traditional transfers from Canada cost about 6.7% on average, while stablecoin settlement can cost one cent or less.

Chainalysis said U.S. companies were building infrastructure for on-chain payments, stablecoins and tokenized assets while much of the demand came from outside the country. Alternative stablecoins and national regulatory frameworks in the European Union, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada also indicate efforts to reduce reliance on dollar-based infrastructure.

Source: Incrypted