NEW: Payment processing giant Stripe says 1 billion transactions per second are necessary to support the future of AI agents. In their 2025 annual letter, Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison said blockchain transaction activity could surge as AI agents become the primary conductors of online transactions. "In our view, agents will most likely soon be responsible for most internet transactions, and we will likely need blockchains that support more than one million — or even one billion — transactions per second." For context, the top two blockchains by speed — Internet Computer Protocol and Solana — currently process roughly 1,196 and 1,140 TPS respectively, with theoretical maximums of only 209,708 and 65,000 TPS. The Stripe co-founders also outlined five levels of AI agent capability: web form completion, descriptive search, persistence (remembering user preferences), delegation (handling tasks autonomously), and anticipation (proactively solving problems). They said agents are currently "hovering on the edge" of levels one and two, having moved past "pure hype" into real-world experimentation. "As with the early internet, the future success of agentic commerce is contingent on universal interoperability. Our ascent through the five levels depends on our ability to work together," they wrote, adding: "If all goes well, the little critters won't be cooped up in walled gardens, but will be zooming down the wide-open protocol highways."