AI Agents Seen as Key Driver of Digital Asset Adoption

BlackRock, a leading asset manager, has published a paper predicting that artificial intelligence (AI) agents will drive digital asset adoption. According to the report, AI agents will pay for compute and data in stablecoins, making them useful for pricing services and supporting payments around the clock.

The report highlights Coinbase's x402 protocol as an emerging way for agents to pay for online resources, including API calls. However, BlackRock warns that agent payments remain at an early stage and liquid markets for standardized compute contracts have yet to develop.

The asset manager estimates that combined revenue from the major cloud businesses of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google could reach about $1.1 trillion by 2030. This presents a significant opportunity for digital assets to provide infrastructure for AI processing.