AI Agents Set to Drive New Demand for Crypto Infrastructure

BlackRock's latest research paper explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and digital assets. According to the firm, AI agents could become a major demand engine for cryptocurrency infrastructure as they begin to pay for services like data, APIs, computing power, and more without human intervention.

The paper describes the emergence of software that can plan and execute multi-step tasks independently, which BlackRock calls 'machine-native intelligence.' This concept suggests that traditional financial infrastructure was primarily designed around human users and accounts, but stablecoins can provide programmable, continuous settlement for machine-to-machine transactions.

BlackRock also identifies tokenized claims on computing capacity as a potential digital-asset market. In this scenario, AI agents could identify available capacity, compare prices, and settle for computing resources through programmable transactions.