BlackRock sees AI-powered payments as a nearer-term use case for digital assets, while markets that allow investors to trade claims on computing power are still developing.
The asset manager said artificial intelligence could become a major driver of digital asset adoption as autonomous agents increasingly handle payments, purchase services and secure computing resources without direct human involvement.
According to BlackRock, AI brings “machine-native intelligence,” while digital assets can provide the payment and settlement infrastructure that allows agents to act on their instructions. An AI agent could eventually pay for a data query, arrange a service or obtain computing capacity without requiring a person to approve every transaction.
Stablecoins could be among the first digital assets to benefit from this shift. Their relatively stable value makes them suitable for pricing services, while blockchain networks can process transactions continuously. BlackRock highlighted Coinbase’s x402 protocol as an emerging example that enables AI agents to pay for online resources, including API calls. The firm also noted that traditional payment networks are adapting to the development of agent-based commerce.
Computing power represents a longer-term opportunity. As AI workloads expand, standardized claims on computing capacity could potentially be traded, financed or used as collateral through digital-asset infrastructure.
BlackRock cited analyst estimates that combined revenue from the cloud businesses of Amazon, Microsoft and Google could reach approximately $1.1 trillion by 2030.
Despite the potential, the market remains at an early stage. BlackRock said payments between AI agents are still developing, while liquid markets for standardized computing contracts have not yet emerged.
