BlackRock research paper says AI and crypto are built for machine-native use, suggesting AI could drive digital asset demand.
Artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are both built for the same kind of user — a machine, according to BlackRock. The world’s largest asset manager believes AI could become an overlooked driver of demand for digital assets.
The assertion appears in a BlackRock research paper titled “The Machine-Native Economy.” Robert Mitchnick, the firm’s head of digital assets, co-authored the document.
“AI is machine-native intelligence and crypto is machine-native money,” the team wrote.
AI agents are programs that perform tasks with minimal human intervention. According to BlackRock, today’s payment infrastructure was not designed for them.
AI is machine-native intelligence and crypto is machine-native money. Both AI and digital assets translate real-world inputs into formats machines can use. Our latest research looks at why that connection could become increasingly important as AI evolves.
Credit cards and bank transfers require a human to sign up. Their fees make microtransactions uneconomical. Some settlements take a day or longer to complete.
Stablecoins, which are crypto tokens tied to the dollar, never close. They processed over $11 trillion in 2025, BlackRock reports. That volume places them in the same range as Visa and Mastercard.
The infrastructure is already being built. Coinbase created x402, a tool that enables software to pay a website instantly. Earlier this month, Cardano integrated with x402.
The more ambitious idea concerns compute, the raw processing capacity behind AI. Analyst figures cited by BlackRock project cloud revenue at Amazon, Microsoft and Google at nearly $1.1 trillion by 2030.
That capacity could be sold via standardised contracts, much like oil, and settled on blockchains, BlackRock suggests.
Stripe is already moving in this direction. In August, the payments company agreed to acquire OpenRouter, which routes AI requests across over 400 models.
“Tokens are the central currency for companies building with AI,” said Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe.
BlackRock also has substantial capital at stake. Its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) held $67 billion on September 25, according to iShares. The fund has lost roughly a third of its value this year.
The paper includes its own caveats. It acknowledges that AI agent payments remain constrained.
It also references tests in which AI models chose stablecoins for spending and Bitcoin for saving, a finding BeInCrypto examined last week. However, those were simulations, not actual transactions.
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Disclaimer: this article comes from third-party media and is provided for reference only. It does not constitute investment advice. Crypto and other financial products carry significant price volatility risk, so please make your own decisions carefully.
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