Analysts at Fidelity Digital Assets have evaluated the prospects for the influence of artificial intelligence on the digital assets market. According to senior analyst Max Waddington, AI agents could become a new source of activity for the sector – from payments to trading and lending – but the benefits will be distributed unevenly among market participants. In its study, the company examined data from more than one hundred thousand developers on the GitHub platform. It turned out that using digital assistants for programming increased the number of commits by a maximum of 180 percent, and the number of releases by 30 percent. Waddington noted that such tools would allow small teams to create and launch blockchain applications more quickly, although in financial and other critically important software, the code still requires manual review.

A similar trend has been identified within the crypto industry itself: in 2026, against the backdrop of declining digital asset quotes, both the number of developers and the volume of commits decreased, yet the average number of changes per developer continued to grow. At the same time, the growth in the number of applications does not in itself guarantee their success, as projects still need users, liquidity, compliance with regulatory requirements, and trust. Autonomous AI agents capable of independently conducting payments, trading assets, providing liquidity, and issuing and taking out loans could become an additional driver of activity in the sector. Blockchains are well‑suited for such operations thanks to their 24/7 operation, programmable calculations, and the ability to carry out microtransactions without human involvement. This market is already taking shape: according to Keyrock, by May, AI agents had conducted more than 176 million transactions worth over 73 million dollars, with about 98.6 % of the operations involving the USDC stablecoin. The infrastructure for such scenarios is also developing, and one of the most active participants in this area is the Coinbase exchange, which launched the x402 protocol for automatic internet payments and introduced a set of tools for trading and settlements using AI. Nevertheless, Fidelity does not expect that all agent operations will move to public blockchains, as banks and fintech companies are developing their own solutions. According to analysts, AI agents will work with several platforms at once, choosing between them based on cost and convenience.

Even if artificial intelligence attracts millions of new transactions to blockchains, this will not necessarily lead to a commensurate increase in the revenue of the networks themselves. Experts cited payments as an example: their number can grow rapidly, but the commission per transaction remains low, and such transactions can be combined into packages or transferred to cheaper second-tier solutions.

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The material has been prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or recommendation.