BlackRock Says AI Agents Could Drive Stablecoin Use for $1.1 Trillion Cloud Payments
Updated
Updated · CoinDesk · Sep 23
BlackRock Says AI Agents Could Drive Stablecoin Use for $1.1 Trillion Cloud Payments
3 articles · Updated · CoinDesk · Sep 23
Summary
BlackRock said autonomous AI agents could become a major new user of digital assets by making small, automated payments for data, services and computing power without human approval.
Stablecoins are the likeliest first beneficiary because they offer relatively stable pricing and 24/7 blockchain settlement; BlackRock cited Coinbase’s x402 protocol as one early way agents can pay for API calls and other online resources.
Compute is the longer-term opportunity: tokenized claims on processing capacity could eventually be traded, financed or posted as collateral as AI demand rises.
BlackRock tied that potential to analyst estimates that Amazon, Microsoft and Google cloud revenue could reach about $1.1 trillion by 2030, while warning agent payments and standardized compute markets are still in their early stages.