AI Could Drive Crypto Demand, Black
Reported by Cointelegraph · AI-assisted summary by ChikoCorp AI News Desk
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Summary
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, published a research paper titled "The Machine-Native Economy" claiming that broad AI adoption could drive increased demand for digital assets. The paper highlights how AI and machine-to-machine payments may boost the use of blockchains, stablecoins, and programmable payment infrastructures. BlackRock also sees a potential new market where digital tokens represent claims on computing capacity used for AI, enabling trading, collateralization, and automated resource purchases.
Why it matters
BlackRock suggests this AI-driven demand for digital assets is an underappreciated structural catalyst that could expand digital assets' role as core infrastructure in an increasingly autonomous digital economy. The research brings the AI-crypto linkage argument to institutional investors, potentially influencing market perspectives and investment strategies.
Key context
The rise of agentic AI, which can operate with minimal human involvement, is expected to require high-frequency, low-value payment rails suitable for digital assets like stablecoins. Current payment systems face issues like human intervention needs, merchant fees, and slow settlement. Additionally, AI's growing compute demand provides a possible avenue for tokenizing and trading computing resources, integrating digital assets into the AI service supply chain.
Key numbers and entities
Named entities include BlackRock and its authors Will Su, Robert Mitchnick, Jay Jacobs, and William Helm. Other named organizations are Coinbase with CEO Brian Armstrong, Circle, OKX, and Tempo. A key research paper mentioned is "The Machine-Native Economy." No specific numerical data is provided.
What remains unclear
The source does not detail specific timelines for these developments, the scale of projected digital asset demand, or how quickly institutional investors might adopt these views. It also does not provide independent verification of the potential market impact or any regulatory considerations surrounding these AI-blockchain integrations.