Agentic Payments — Report Plan

Goal

A multi-file English research report on Agentic Payments. ≥50,000 words total, heavily cited, no hallucinations, cross-referenced.

File layout (all under sections/)

  • 00-executive-summary.md (~2,500 words) — TL;DR, key findings, market sizing
  • 01-introduction-and-taxonomy.md (~4,500 words) — definitions, history, scope of agentic payments, actor model, flow taxonomy
  • 02-academic-literature.md (~4,500 words) — survey of academic / standards literature with detailed analysis
  • 03-protocol-deep-dive-ap2.md (~5,000 words) — Google AP2 detailed spec walkthrough
  • 04-protocol-deep-dive-acp.md (~4,500 words) — OpenAI/Stripe ACP detailed walkthrough
  • 05-protocol-deep-dive-x402-and-crypto.md (~5,000 words) — x402, ERC-8004, Crossmint, Catena, Skyfire, Nekuda, MCP-payments
  • 06-card-networks.md (~5,000 words) — Visa Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Agent Pay, Amex, Cloudflare Web Bot Auth
  • 07-wallets-platforms.md (~4,500 words) — PayPal, Stripe Issuing for agents, Apple/Google Pay, Klarna, Block/Cash App
  • 08-merchant-and-retail.md (~4,500 words) — Walmart/OpenAI, Shopify+Google UCP, Etsy, Perplexity Comet, marketplaces
  • 09-security-and-trust.md (~5,000 words) — prompt injection, mandate spoofing, agent identity, KYA, hardware-backed keys, threat model
  • 10-regulation-and-compliance.md (~5,000 words) — CFPB, FCA/PSR, EU AI Act, PSD2/PSD3, KYC/AML, liability, dispute, chargebacks
  • 11-pain-points-and-open-problems.md (~4,500 words) — interoperability, identity, privacy, UX/consent, micropayment economics, dispute & repair
  • 12-future-directions.md (~3,500 words) — projected market, research roadmap, A2A commerce, machine economy
  • 13-conclusion.md (~1,500 words)
  • references.md — global bibliography aggregated from all sections
  • README.md — index + how-to-read

Total target: ~60,000 words (50K floor with safety margin).

Sub-agent assignment strategy

Dispatch in parallel batches of 4. Each agent gets:

  • The source brief
  • Their section's word target and structure
  • The plan file for cross-referencing other sections
  • Strict citation rules