BlackRock released a research paper titled The Machine-Native Economy, which explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and digital assets. The firm suggests that the adoption of AI agents could significantly increase demand for programmable payment infrastructure, specifically stablecoins and on-chain assets.
The report highlights that existing payment systems often require human intervention for account setup and authorization, whereas digital assets are better suited for high-frequency, low-value machine-to-machine transactions. Stablecoins are identified as the primary assets likely to lead in this transactional space.
BlackRock also proposes that digital assets could support the compute market by tokenizing claims on processing power. This would allow computing capacity to be traded or used as collateral, potentially attracting institutional investors to the digital asset ecosystem.
The research aligns with views previously expressed by industry figures, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who has argued that AI agents will require programmable money. Several companies, such as Coinbase, Circle, and OKX, are already developing protocols designed to facilitate automated payments for AI agents.
