BlackRock Says AI Agents Could Soon Pay for Compute and Data With Stablecoins

BlackRock sees payments as the more immediate opportunity for digital assets, while markets built around computing capacity are still in their early stages.

Artificial intelligence could become a major catalyst for digital asset adoption as autonomous AI agents begin conducting transactions, paying for services and obtaining computing resources, according to a BlackRock research paper.

The asset manager argues that AI offers “machine-native intelligence,” while digital assets can provide the payment and settlement infrastructure needed for agents to execute decisions. An autonomous agent could, for instance, pay for a data request, arrange a service or purchase computing resources without requiring a human to complete each transaction.

Stablecoins could emerge as an early beneficiary of this trend. Their relatively stable value makes them suitable for pricing digital services, while blockchain networks can facilitate payments at any time. BlackRock points to Coinbase’s x402 protocol as one emerging system that allows AI agents to pay for online resources, including API calls. The firm also notes that traditional payment networks are adapting to the growth of agent-driven commerce.

Computing capacity represents a longer-term opportunity, according to the paper. As AI workloads increase, standardized claims on computing resources could eventually be traded, financed or used as collateral through digital-asset infrastructure.

BlackRock cites analyst estimates that combined revenue from the major cloud businesses operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google could reach around $1.1 trillion by 2030.

However, BlackRock says AI-agent payments are still in an early phase, while liquid markets for standardized computing contracts have yet to emerge.