Crypto Long & Short: What will the AI agents run on?

The conversation around artificial intelligence has become dominated by a familiar question: Which companies will win? Investors are trying to identify the next dominant model, application or AI platform, and enormous amounts of capital are being deployed accordingly. But I think there is another investment question that deserves considerably more attention. If AI becomes as economically important as markets expect, what financial infrastructure will that economy actually run on?

Increasingly, I believe the answer will involve blockchain and digital assets. That does not mean every AI company needs a token, nor does it mean attaching “AI” to a crypto project suddenly creates value. The more interesting opportunity sits underneath both sectors, where autonomous software begins interacting with financial systems and needs infrastructure capable of moving value as quickly and programmatically as it moves information.

We are moving toward a world in which AI agents will not simply generate text or analyze data. They will negotiate with other agents, purchase computing resources, pay for data, execute transactions and manage financial decisions within parameters established by humans. Traditional payment infrastructure was built around people and institutions initiating transactions. It was not designed for potentially millions of autonomous software agents conducting low-value transactions continuously across borders.

Blockchain infrastructure is unusually well suited to that environment because money can become programmable. An AI agent can interact with a wallet, execute a smart contract or transfer a stablecoin without requiring the same layers of manual intervention associated with traditional financial infrastructure. Stablecoins are particularly important here because they provide a bridge between blockchain's programmability and a familiar unit of account.

This is where I think investors should broaden their view of the AI trade. The opportunity is not limited to owning companies building models or applications. If AI creates significantly more machine-to-machine economic activity, there will also be demand for the infrastructure that allows those machines to transact, prove identity, establish ownership and exchange value.