- Jan Curn of Apify said chargebacks cannot work with unlimited agents, and crypto systems like x402 and Stripe MPP offer only optional refunds. WebPulse's reading: buyers then depend on sellers.
- Curn said x402's variable-cost scheme let a buyer spend the same money twice. He said Apify recently added, he thought last week, a batch scheme that solves this.
Jan Curn, founder of Apify, said on the AI Engineer show that card-style chargebacks cannot work in the agent world, because the number of agents is unlimited. He named x402 and Stripe MPP, the two most popular agent payment standards, as crypto-based. Crypto has no chargebacks, he said, only refunds that merchants may choose to give.
What was said
Curn began with how online selling works today. Card payments allow chargebacks, and every online seller expects some people to use a service and then ask for their money back. He called it a way of life for online businesses. That breaks down with machines. In his words, "there's an infinite number of agents and they will just steal all your money, effectively, or take your service for free."
Crypto payments, he said, have no chargebacks. They have refunds, and these are optional for merchants. He called crypto well suited to agent payments.
He then described a gap in x402. Its variable-cost scheme, called up-to, let a seller charge flexible amounts. Curn said nothing stopped the buyer's agent from spending the same money twice, because the transaction settled on the blockchain later.
Apify worked around this. It charged a sum up front, for example $10, then refunded the rest once the work was done and, say, $2 was used. Curn said that approach requires the agents to trust the seller. It also meant two transactions and more fees.
Later, he said, x402 released a batch settlement scheme in 2026. Apify added support for it recently, he thought last week. Curn said it uses crypto to hold the money in escrow, and that it solves the double-spend problem.
Why it matters
Our reading: with no chargebacks, a buyer's protection comes from the seller's refund policy. If a buyer's agent pays and the software then fails, the money has already moved. Getting it back depends on the seller, not on a bank.
For anyone building or buying agents, refund terms become a design question. Teams can ask what happens when a paid task fails halfway. Curn also flagged a seller-side risk: doing the work before payment settles can cost the seller money.
The other side
Curn is a seller with a stake in this market, and he argued from the seller's side. His trust remark was about his own refund workaround, not about software failure in general. That link is ours.
He also said real agent payment volume is close to nothing so far. Agents mostly use API keys, which he called the more convenient option, so these risks are largely untested.
He did not explain how the escrow scheme handles failed work or disputes, and he skipped the detail for lack of time. The talk also did not say who steps in if a seller refuses a refund.
Written by the WebPulse Newsroom with AI assistance, and checked by our editorial review: every quotation was verified against the recording's transcript. How we use AI.
The conversation this talking point comes from
- AI Engineer: Why AI Agents Still Won't Pay for Anything — Jan Curn, Apify (2026-10-18)
