BlackRock’s New AI Prediction Could Change How Investors See Crypto

BlackRock says that AI and crypto are built for the same user, a machine. The world's largest asset manager says artificial intelligence could become an overlooked source of demand for digital assets.

The claim comes from a BlackRock research paper titled "The Machine-Native Economy." Robert Mitchnick, the firm's head of digital assets, co-wrote it.

"AI is machine-native intelligence and crypto is machine-native money," the team wrote.

Why BlackRock Says Bank Cards Fall Short for AI

AI agents are programs that finish tasks with little human help. Today's payment systems were not built for them, according to BlackRock.

Cards and bank transfers need a human to sign up. Their fees make penny payments pointless. Some take a day or more to settle.

Stablecoins, crypto tokens pegged to the dollar, never close. They moved more than $11 trillion in 2025, BlackRock says. That puts them in the same league as Visa and Mastercard.

The pipes are already being laid. Coinbase built x402, a tool that lets software pay a website instantly. Earlier this month, Cardano joined x402.

BlackRock Wants AI Computing Power to Trade Like Oil

The bolder bet concerns compute, the raw processing power behind AI. Analyst estimates cited by BlackRock put cloud revenue at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google near $1.1 trillion by 2030.