Circle Launches Nanopayments Testnet: Enabling Gas-Free USDC Micropayments

Circle has officially launched the Nanopayments testnet, achieving gas-free USDC micropayments as low as $0.000001 for the first time. Built on the Circle Gateway infrastructure, the system is designed for machine-to-machine communication and the AI agent economy, supporting automated devices and agents in completing high-frequency, small-value fund transfers without human intervention. To address the high costs and slow speeds of traditional blockchain transactions, Nanopayments adopts a "off-chain aggregation, on-chain batch settlement" architecture. Thousands of micropayments are recorded and aggregated in real-time off-chain, then settled in batches to mainnets such as Ethereum, reducing the cost per transaction to almost zero. At the same time, Circle bears all network fees, ensuring that end-users and developers do not have to pay any fees.

Technically, the system is compatible with the EIP-3009 authorization protocol, allowing AI agents to initiate payments directly through digital signatures without registering an account or binding a credit card. Merchants receive real-time payment notifications via API, with immediate updates to their accounts, while blockchain settlement is completed asynchronously in the background, without affecting the user experience. Nanopayments fully supports the x402 payment standard, providing a standardized payment interface for the decentralized service ecosystem. This design greatly simplifies the transaction process between automated services, significantly lowers the barrier to entry, and promotes seamless value exchange between smart devices, API services, and AI agents.

In actual testing, Circle partnered with robotics software company OpenMind to successfully enable an autonomous robot dog to complete instant payment for energy replenishment through the system. The entire process achieved second-level confirmation, with uninterrupted device operation, and on-chain settlement was completed quietly in the background, verifying the feasibility of the technology in real-world scenarios. As the issuer of USDC, a stablecoin supported by major global fiat currencies, Circle's deployment focuses on emerging micropayment scenarios, including pay-per-call APIs, computing power billing, and automatic subscription renewals for smart devices. The system is currently in the testing phase, encouraging developers to explore innovative business models based on zero-fee micropayments, but a timeline for the mainnet launch has not yet been announced.