The agent economy keeps re-hiring the middlemen crypto was built to remove

Short summary

A Keyrock study found $73M settled across 176M machine-to-machine agent transactions in one year, but 98% flowed through a single stablecoin issuer—creating a single point of failure. The article argues that the agent economy is re-creating the centralized middlemen crypto was designed to remove, with custodial escrow and broker services proliferating. Hashlock proposes HTLC atomic settlement via MCP as a trustless alternative where no middleman holds funds.

• •98% of agent economy settlements flow through one stablecoin issuer, creating systemic risk
• •Custodial escrow and broker services are re-introducing the middlemen crypto aimed to remove
• •HTLC atomic settlement offers trustless agent-to-agent trading without custody

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