Circle showed a payments demo with Proof built around software agents using USDC. The setup combines Proof’s x401 identity layer with Circle’s x402 payment protocol. In practice, an agent can present machine-readable credentials that show who it represents and what it is allowed to do, then send a USDC payment in the same request.
That means identity checks and payment happen together instead of as separate steps. One clear example is API access: a cloud provider could sell access only to agents tied to a verified business. Another is internal spending controls, where a company’s software bots can buy services within a preset limit, with the activity logged on-chain.
The point of the demo is simple: it packages authorization and settlement into one flow for machine-to-machine transactions.