BlackRock claims that the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) could significantly increase demand for digital assets, especially stablecoins and programmable payment infrastructure. In its new study "The Machine-Native Economy," the company notes that the rise of AI and machine-to-machine payments could create a need for blockchains and other programmable payment systems, including stablecoins and blockchain assets.
The study's authors – Will Su, Robert Mitchnick, Jay Jacobs, and William Helm – write: "This connection remains underestimated and could expand the role of digital assets as the main infrastructure for an increasingly autonomous digital economy."
BlackRock points out that existing payment systems only partially support automation: account setup and authorization may require human involvement. Merchant fees make small transactions unprofitable, and settlement times and finality vary among providers. In particular, the company highlights stablecoins, native cryptocurrencies, and tokenized real assets as suitable for high-frequency machine-to-machine transactions. "Several types of digital assets can support agent commerce, but stablecoins are likely to lead transactional use," the authors note.
According to analysts, the growing demand for computing resources for training and operating AI systems may prompt AI companies to fix costs and providers to manage risks. Rights to these resources could be represented as tokens that can be transferred, used as collateral, or traded. "This, in turn, could expand institutional investor participation and establish compute as a new opportunity for the entire digital asset ecosystem," the authors write. They also believe that AI agents will be able to automatically acquire the necessary resources on such markets.
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