Crypto’s infrastructure era arrives, with AI agents poised to reshape demand
The crypto industry is shifting its focus from human users to AI agents, believing they naturally require crypto's digital infrastructure like wallets and programmable money. Companies like Kraken, Coinbase, and Circle are developing tools and platforms for AI agents to monitor markets, execute trades, and handle operational tasks. This marks a new growth engine for crypto, leveraging AI's online operational nature.
Why it matters
This convergence could significantly expand crypto's utility beyond traditional trading, integrating it into the burgeoning AI economy and potentially driving mainstream adoption through automated systems rather than individual human users.
For years, the crypto industry's biggest challenge has been finding users beyond traders. Now, some of its largest companies think they've found them in AI agents.
Although speculation still underpins much of crypto's business, companies are trying to build a second growth engine by turning agents into users of crypto wallets, stablecoins and payment networks.
For example, this summer, Kraken said it's rebuilding its app to be able to give users access to AI agents capable of continuously monitoring markets, identifying investing opportunities and executing trades in real time. Coinbase launched a new tool that will allow agents like ChatGPT or Claude to execute crypto trades using natural language instructions. And in May, Circle announced a strategic expansion with its home-grown Arc blockchain, which is designed to be infrastructure for the agentic economy, where AI agents handle more of the operational and contractual work currently managed by humans.
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