BlackRock sees AI driving digital asset use through payments and compute markets

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AI drives digital asset use

Highlights

BlackRock identifies AI-driven payments as a near-term opportunity, highlighting stablecoins and protocols like Coinbase x402 for automated agent transactions.
BlackRock views compute capacity tokenization as a longer-term digital asset opportunity, noting a lack of standardized contracts and liquid secondary markets.
The firm cites estimates of cloud business revenues from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google reaching $1.1 trillion by 2030, underscoring the potential addressable compute economy.

BlackRock outlines payment and compute use cases

As reported by CoinDesk, citing BlackRock, artificial intelligence and digital assets could become complementary technologies because AI agents need payment and settlement tools to execute decisions without human intervention. The asset manager says digital assets may provide the infrastructure for agents to pay for data requests, book services or buy computing capacity as part of automated workflows.

BlackRock identifies stablecoins as the most immediate beneficiary of that trend. It says their relatively stable value makes them suitable for pricing services, while blockchain networks support continuous payments, and it points to Coinbase x402 protocol as an emerging method for agents to pay for online resources such as API calls.

The paper also describes computing capacity as a longer-term digital asset opportunity. BlackRock says standardized claims on compute could eventually be traded, financed or used as collateral, but adds that standardized contracts and liquid secondary markets have not yet developed.

Implications for digital asset markets

BlackRock's view places payments ahead of tokenized compute trading in terms of commercial readiness. The firm says existing payment networks are also adapting to agentic commerce, suggesting competition may intensify as blockchain-based and traditional systems seek to serve automated transactions.

For the broader market, the analysis points to infrastructure rather than speculation as a key adoption theme. BlackRock cites analyst estimates that revenue from the major cloud businesses of Amazon, Microsoft and Google could reach about $1.1 trillion by 2030, indicating the scale of the compute economy that tokenized financial rails could eventually target if market standards mature.

Our earlier article on first-mover advantage in crypto explained why market leaders often keep their edge even when newer products look technically superior. It highlighted how capital concentration and existing liquidity continue to favor incumbents across networks, DeFi venues and stablecoins, with only selective shifts when regulation or market structure changes.

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