BlackRock, the $15 trillion asset manager, published a report arguing that artificial intelligence agents will become a major source of cryptocurrency demand, requiring blockchain infrastructure designed for high-frequency, sub-cent transactions.
The report, titled “The Machine-Native Economy,” contends that AI agents operating autonomously will need to book travel, purchase data, and rent computing power without human intermediaries. Traditional payment systems, BlackRock argues, impose uneconomic fees on tiny transactions and require slower settlement cycles unsuitable for machine-speed commerce.
“As AI agents become more capable and as their real-world applications expand, they increasingly demand payment and asset infrastructure designed natively for machine-speed commerce,” the BlackRock report states.
The asset manager identifies blockchain-native infrastructure as particularly suited to this use case. “Crypto-native blockchain rails are particularly well suited to high-frequency, sub-cent, machine-to-machine transactions that take place around-the-clock, including API calls, on-demand data, and consumption based compute,”
Stablecoins and Bitcoin in Simulated Scenarios
Research from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, cited in BlackRock’s report, tested asset preferences in controlled simulations. The findings favored stablecoins for everyday payments and Bitcoin for long-term value preservation.
BlackRock extends this analysis to a broader economic scenario. “As AI adoption broadens and agentic systems become more capable, digital assets could become increasingly integral to AI’s economic infrastructure, expanding utility across stablecoins, tokenized RWAs, and native cryptoassets that support blockchain settlement,”
BlackRock’s Existing Bitcoin Exposure
BlackRock launched the iShares Bitcoin Trust in 2024 following SEC approval. The fund achieved the most successful debut in ETF history and now manages over $67 billion in assets, commanding the highest investment and trading volume among all U.S. Bitcoin ETFs.
The company has previously characterized Bitcoin as an asset class unto itself, positioning it as a hedge against potential debt crises.
Bitcoin Magazine reporter Mathew Di Salvo covered the BlackRock report on October 6, 2026.
