BlackRock: AI agents will soon pay their own bills in stablecoins, ask Larry later 💸

Artificial intelligence could rank among the largest drivers of digital asset adoption as autonomous agents begin purchasing services, moving funds and sourcing compute power, according to a BlackRock paper. The asset manager frames AI as providing "machine-native intelligence" while digital assets supply the payment and settlement infrastructure agents need to act on those decisions, meaning a task-executing agent could pay for a data request, book a service or purchase computing capacity without waiting for a human.

Stablecoins are positioned as the near-term beneficiary. Their comparatively stable value suits the pricing of services, and blockchain networks can settle payments around the clock. BlackRock highlights the Coinbase x402 protocol as one emerging mechanism for agents to pay for online resources, including API calls, while noting that incumbent payments networks are also adapting to agentic commerce.

Compute markets are framed as a longer-dated opportunity. As demand for AI processing expands, standardized claims on computing capacity could be traded, financed or pledged as collateral through digital asset infrastructure. BlackRock cites analyst estimates projecting that revenue from the major cloud businesses of Amazon, Microsoft and Google could reach about $1.1 trillion by 2030. The paper cautions that liquid markets for standardized compute contracts have yet to develop.