BlackRock: AI Agents Could Become a Key Driver of the Next Wave of Crypto Market Demand Growth

PANews, September 23 – According to Decrypt, BlackRock's digital asset research team released a report titled "The Machine-Native Economy," stating that as AI agents gradually gain the ability to autonomously execute tasks and make payments, AI could become a key driver of future crypto asset demand growth. BlackRock believes that AI agents need to make high-frequency, low-value payments such as API calls, data access, and computing power rental, scenarios for which traditional bank accounts and card networks are ill-suited, while stablecoins can provide around-the-clock, near-instant settlement.

The report also suggests that packaging computing power into standardized on-chain contracts could become a new digital asset use case, with related assets capable of being bought and sold, used as collateral, or settled automatically. Citing data, BlackRock noted that stablecoin adjusted transaction volume exceeded $11 trillion in 2025, and that stablecoin circulating market cap had surpassed $300 billion as of September 2026; TRM Labs' research on this year's $52.7 million in x402 settlement volume shows that AI agents currently account for only about 0.6% to 7.5% of it, but BlackRock believes that as AI agents autonomously complete payments and procure services, their demand could further drive the development of stablecoins and programmable blockchain infrastructure.