BlackRock says AI could drive demand for crypto payments and compute

BlackRock says AI agents could increase demand for digital assets. Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's head of digital assets, co-wrote the research paper. BlackRock says existing payment systems require human sign-up, charge fees that make very small payments impractical, and can take a day or more to settle. BlackRock says stablecoins moved more than $11 trillion in 2025. Coinbase built x402 to let software pay websites instantly. Cardano joined x402 earlier this month. BlackRock says computing power for AI could be sold through standard contracts and settled on blockchains. Analyst estimates cited by BlackRock put cloud revenue at Amazon, Microsoft and Google near $1.1 trillion by 2030. Stripe agreed in August to buy OpenRouter, which routes AI requests across more than 400 models. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison called tokens the central currency for companies building with AI. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust held $67 billion on September 25, according to iShares. The fund has lost about a third of its value this year. BlackRock acknowledges that payments by AI agents remain limited. The paper cites simulations in which AI models chose stablecoins to spend and Bitcoin to save, not real purchases.