BlackRock Predicts Autonomous AI Agents Will Fuel Stablecoin Demand

BlackRock's digital assets research team has published a paper titled 'The Machine-Native Economy' that predicts autonomous AI agents will become a significant source of demand for stablecoins and the blockchains that settle them.

The paper argues that AI agents completing tasks such as booking travel or running analyses may need to pay repeatedly for API calls, data feeds, and processing power, which are often worth fractions of a cent and can happen at any hour.

BlackRock suggests that card networks and ACH are less suited to this pattern due to account setup requirements, merchant fees, and delayed settlement.

The team backs the case with scale data, noting that stablecoins had more than $300 billion in circulation as of September, and adjusted transaction volume topped $11 trillion in 2025, growing at an 80% compound annual rate since 2020.

BlackRock also argues that compute is becoming an investable resource, citing estimates that combined revenue from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud, and Google Cloud will reach near $1.1 trillion by 2030.