BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, published research this week suggesting artificial intelligence could become one of the biggest drivers of demand for cryptocurrency. The firm argues that as AI agents become capable of making autonomous payments, stablecoins are best suited to handle the transactions these systems will require.
The paper, titled The Machine-Native Economy, comes from BlackRock's Digital Assets Research team led by Will Su and Robert Mitchnick. It proposes that AI represents machine-native intelligence while digital assets represent machine-native money, arguing the two are naturally aligned.
The Payment Problem
The research focuses on agentic AI—artificial intelligence systems capable of planning and executing multi-step tasks independently. Unlike AI that merely recommends actions, these agents can book flights, arrange payments, and complete transactions with minimal human involvement.
Traditional payment systems pose a challenge for autonomous agents. Bank accounts and credit cards require human identification, and card-network fees are impractical for fractional-cent transactions like API calls. Stablecoins—cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar—operate around the clock, settle nearly instantly, and require no intermediary.
According to the report, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached $11 trillion in 2025, comparable to Visa and Mastercard's annual volumes. While this trails the $93 trillion moved through traditional ACH bank transfers, stablecoin volume has grown roughly 80% annually since 2020, compared with about 8.5% for ACH.
Infrastructure in Development
Some infrastructure for agent payments already exists. x402, a protocol built by Coinbase using the HTTP 402 web code, enables software to pay for data feeds or API calls in a single request without accounts or human approval. Amazon has integrated stablecoin payments into its AI cloud tools with Coinbase and Stripe, while Google developed its own agent-payments layer with backing from Coinbase and the Ethereum Foundation.
Current usage remains limited. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs examined $52.7 million in x402 settlements and found AI agents likely accounted for between 0.6% and 7.5% of that volume, with most traffic resembling automated scripts rather than genuine autonomous agents.
Computing as a Commodity
BlackRock proposes a new asset class: standardized contracts on computing power, similar to futures markets for oil or wheat. AI agents could then negotiate for the cheapest available server capacity and pay directly for computing resources on a per-job basis.
The paper notes that analyst estimates place combined 2030 revenue for Amazon, Microsoft, and Google's cloud divisions at roughly $1.1 trillion. BlackRock's research puts stablecoins' circulating market cap above $300 billion as of September 2026.
The firm's thesis is that as autonomous systems begin paying their own bills, AI agents—not human consumers—could drive the next phase of cryptocurrency growth.
