MoonPay Launches PayBox, Letting Claude and ChatGPT Users Trade on Solana Through Conversation

MoonPay launched PayBox on July 29, 2026, a non-custodial payment vault that connects Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT (OpenAI) users to Solana and a network of real-world merchants without any code or wallet setup. The product, available at paybox.sh, routes transactions through custom connectors for each AI platform and uses the x402 open payment standard for merchant payments.

The workflow MoonPay describes follows three steps: a user prompts the AI agent with a plain-language instruction, the agent researches and prepares the transaction, and the user approves it via passkey. MoonPay holds no custody of funds at any stage.

How PayBox Handles Spending Permissions

Two modes govern when the AI is allowed to spend. In "Always Ask" mode, each transaction requires a fresh passkey approval from the user — the passkey is scoped to that single action and expires after use to prevent replay attacks. "Autonomous" mode lets the agent proceed within rules the user configures in advance: a spending cap, a token allowlist, a per-transaction ceiling, or some combination.

The distinction matters because it defines the trust boundary. Always Ask gives users full per-transaction oversight; Autonomous delegates that oversight to a ruleset the user controls but does not actively monitor. MoonPay Labs chief engineer Neeraj Prasad, whose AI trading startup Dawn Labs MoonPay acquired during its AI infrastructure build, described the design to The Block as building agentic payments "inside their own walls, while PayBox uses open rails."

MPC Security from Sodot

Wallet keys never touch the AI model. PayBox's key management runs on infrastructure from Sodot, which MoonPay acquired in April 2026. Sodot uses multi-party computation to split private keys across hardware-isolated secure enclaves, meaning neither MoonPay nor the AI agent can independently sign a transaction. The security stack has been assessed by Trail of Bits and NCC Group and is PCI DSS 4.0.1 certified. According to MoonPay's press release, Sodot's infrastructure has secured more than $50 billion in assets across 10 million wallets.

Card payments route through Visa's agentic commerce protocol, generating single-use virtual card numbers scoped to specific merchants and amounts so raw card data is never stored by or visible to the agent.

Chains, Actions, and x402 Integrations

PayBox launches with Solana as its primary settlement chain alongside seven EVM-compatible networks: Ethereum (ETH), Hyperliquid, Tempo, Base, Robinhood Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Supported on-chain actions include buying crypto with fiat, swapping tokens, bridging assets, and DeFi deposits. MoonPay plans to add token swaps, perpetual futures, and liquidity management within one month of launch, per The Block.

Real-world merchant payments route through x402, an open internet payment standard that revives the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code for agent-initiated transactions. The standard is now governed by the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation, which launched on July 14 with members including Visa, Anthropic, AWS, Mastercard, and Shopify. At launch, PayBox's x402 integrations cover restaurant reservations via AgentRes.dev, flight bookings via BRIJ.fi, and retail purchases via Purch.xyz. USDC is the primary settlement currency across x402 transactions.

The x402 network logged 75 million transactions and $24 million in volume in the 30 days prior to launch, according to Genfinity's coverage, with Solana and Base as the most active settlement chains.

Where PayBox Fits in Solana's AI Payments Stack

PayBox is consumer-facing, which sets it apart from MoonPay's existing AI product. MoonAgents, launched in February 2026, is a developer infrastructure layer giving AI agents programmatic access to crypto tools via CLI or MCP server. PayBox targets people who already use Claude or ChatGPT as daily applications and want to transact through those interfaces without configuring wallets or managing keys.

The Solana Foundation and Google Cloud operate a parallel effort in this space: Pay.sh, an open-standard AI payment gateway also built on x402 and Solana, which launched in June 2026. Pay.sh focuses on API-level micropayments and developer tooling; PayBox targets end-user commerce through consumer AI platforms.

MoonPay says it serves 30 million customers across 180 countries and 1,700 enterprise clients. The company holds a New York BitLicense and MiCA authorization in the EU. PayBox's site also lists Gemini and Grok as planned AI platform integrations following the initial Claude and ChatGPT connectors.