AI Convergence Drives Demand for Digital Assets

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming financial infrastructure and creating new opportunities for digital assets. As AI systems become increasingly capable of interacting with financial networks, they are converging with digital assets, which represent machine-native currency.

This convergence is driven by the rise of agent-based AI, which enables systems to plan and execute multi-step tasks around established goals with limited human intervention. Blockchain provides programmable infrastructure that connects intelligence with economic activities, allowing AI to not only generate content but also take actions in the real world, including shopping and initiating financial transactions.

According to BlackRock, three areas of convergence are emerging:

1) The tokenization of assets on blockchain and large language models have structural similarities. While their functions differ, both convert real-world inputs into formats that machines can directly use.

2) Agent-based commerce requires machine-native payment channels. The rise of agent-based AI may increase the demand for blockchain and other programmable payment infrastructures; stablecoins, native crypto assets, and other on-chain assets can serve as machine-native payment and settlement tools.

3) Computing power is becoming a massive new market for digital assets. By 2030, the annual revenue of hyperscale cloud providers' cloud businesses could exceed $1 trillion.