BlackRock’s Vision for AI and Stablecoins in Future Payments
- BlackRock’s paper suggests stablecoins are better than banks for sub-cent, continuous payments needed by AI agents.
- The report introduces a new asset class of tokenized claims on computing power.
- TRM Labs found AI agents account for only between 0.6% and 7.5% of payment volume on Coinbase’s x402 protocol.
- Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached over $11 trillion in a year, comparable to Visa and Mastercard but still less than the $93 trillion ACH system.
BlackRock predicts that as AI systems become more autonomous, they will increasingly require their own financial infrastructure, with stablecoins being the most suitable tool for these transactions due to their ability to settle instantly without human intervention.
The firm anticipates that AI-driven demand will significantly boost stablecoin usage, projecting a market cap above $300 billion by September of an unspecified year. Source
