AI potential to drive crypto demand remains ‘underappreciated’: BlackRock

BlackRock says AI agents could drive demand for stablecoins and programmable payment rails, while tokenized computing capacity could create another opportunity for digital assets.

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, says broad AI adoption could represent an underappreciated source of demand for digital assets. 

In its latest research paper, “The Machine-Native Economy,” BlackRock said the rise of AI and machine-to-machine payments could increase demand for blockchains and other programmable payment infrastructure, including stablecoins and other on-chain assets. It also sees a potential opportunity for digital assets to support the compute market, allowing claims on computing capacity to be tokenized, traded and used as collateral. 

“Together, these developments position AI as a structural catalyst for digital asset adoption and digital assets as a potential facilitator of the AI economy,” BlackRock’s Will Su, Robert Mitchnick, Jay Jacobs and William Helm wrote. “This relationship remains underappreciated and could expand the role of digital assets as core infrastructure for an increasingly autonomous digital economy.”

Read more