MoonPay has introduced a new noncustodial service called PayBox that allows users to set up and complete cryptocurrency transactions and online purchases directly through AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
The system links a secure “payment vault” to supported AI platforms, enabling people to describe what they want to do in everyday language. The assistant can then search for options, assemble the transaction and carry it out, provided it stays within the permissions defined by the user.
Through PayBox, users can buy digital assets with traditional currency, swap tokens, move funds across different blockchains and deposit assets into decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols. The vault can also be used for everyday spending, including booking flights, making restaurant reservations and purchasing goods from online shops.
AI with controlled spending power
The launch is designed to push AI assistants beyond research and planning into actually completing payments on a user’s behalf, but with strict guardrails. How much freedom the assistant has depends entirely on the security rules attached to the individual PayBox account.
MoonPay said PayBox is already live via its dedicated website. Before issuing any payment instructions, users must link the vault to a compatible AI platform using a custom connector.
Once connected, PayBox offers two distinct authorisation models. In the “Always Ask” mode, every transaction has to be confirmed by the user with a passkey. That approval is valid only for a single payment and expires immediately after use, preventing the AI from reapplying it to any other transaction.
The “Autonomous” option gives the AI assistant the ability to act within preset spending caps and other user-defined limits. This removes the need to sign off on each qualifying transaction individually, but it does not hand the assistant full control over the vault.
Any attempt to switch between authorisation models or to alter spending limits and transaction rules triggers a fresh passkey check. Users can therefore specify how much the AI is allowed to spend, what types of actions it can take and when it can execute them without further intervention.
Crypto wallets, cards and security
PayBox has been built to handle both cryptocurrency wallets and traditional payment cards.
For crypto transactions, MoonPay uses multiparty computation to divide private keys and store the resulting fragments in separate secure hardware environments. According to the company, neither MoonPay nor the connected AI assistant is able, on its own, to reconstruct the full key or authorise a transfer of assets.
For card-based payments, PayBox relies on Visa’s agentic commerce protocol. This allows the assistant to finalise approved purchases without ever being shown or holding the underlying card number.
On the network side, MoonPay has added support for Solana and a range of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains. At launch, the service works with Ethereum, Hyperliquid, Tempo, Base, Robinhood Chain, Arbitrum and Polygon.
The vault also plugs into x402, an open payment standard created for services that accept transactions initiated by AI agents. MoonPay said its first x402-enabled use cases include travel bookings, restaurant reservations and purchases from major online retailers.
This combination of networks and integrations means that, in principle, a user could manage several linked steps in a single conversation. An assistant might, for example, help a user buy a digital asset, bridge it to another blockchain and then place it into a supported DeFi protocol, so long as each step falls within the vault’s configured permissions.
Built on Sodot technology
Security for PayBox rests on technology developed by Sodot, a key-management specialist that MoonPay acquired earlier in 2026. MoonPay said Sodot’s infrastructure currently safeguards more than $50bn in assets across in excess of 10 million wallets.
The launch of PayBox follows MoonPay’s recent push into tokenised financial products. In June, crypto.news reported that Franklin Templeton had added its BENJI tokenised money market fund to MoonPay Trade.
That link-up enables institutional clients to swap USDC, USDT and other stablecoins for BENJI on MoonPay’s on-chain trading platform. It also provides BENJI holders with access to stablecoin liquidity, supporting use cases such as treasury management, portfolio rebalancing, collateral and liquidity provision.
PayBox, by contrast, is aimed at a different corner of the market by tying consumer crypto and card payments directly to conversational AI tools. MoonPay describes the vault as noncustodial because users retain control over their assets and neither MoonPay nor the AI providers can move funds on their own.
For users in the United States, the use of Visa’s agentic commerce framework may help make AI-assisted card payments more workable in practice, while the passkey safeguards are intended to ease concerns about unauthorised spending. However, access to specific crypto assets, DeFi services and payment options will still be shaped by each user’s location and by the individual policies of the providers involved.
