Coinbase (COIN -10.59%) CEO Brian Armstrong recently claimed that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) agents would boost cryptocurrency adoption. In a post on X, Armstrong said AI agents will need their own financial infrastructure and will eventually transact far more per day than all humans combined." Since AI agents can't open bank accounts or wait for wire transfers, Armstrong believes they will need to use cryptocurrencies as 'real-time programmable money'.
It might seem odd to think that AI agents will need their own money, but it actually makes sense if we expect those agents to work autonomously. Let's see how that could happen, and what that shift might mean for cryptocurrency investors over the long term.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why would AI agents need their own money?
Coinbase's own Base network already supports the development of AI agents. Armstrong believes those agents will eventually "need to hold funds and pay for things on their own" and "raise or borrow money for new projects they are undertaking." By doing so, they can serve as financial advisors and automate tax planning, portfolio rebalancing, and bill-paying tasks. They can also pay for other on-demand cloud and AI services to complete their own workflows.
Therefore, AI agents could operate independently and pay one another using cryptocurrencies rather than going through conventional banks. If that happens, cryptocurrencies would become a foundational layer of the agentic AI market.
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But what would that mean for cryptocurrency investors?
If AI agents fully adopt cryptocurrencies for their own autonomous transactions, they'll probably gravitate toward stable tokens rather than volatile ones. That trend would favor established stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC +0.00%), which are pegged to the U.S. dollar, and blue chip cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC -0.24%) and Ether (ETH -0.87%).
Solana (SOL -1.23%), which targets the same decentralized app developers as Ether but processes transactions at a much faster rate, would also benefit from that shift. Coinbase already routes its x402 agentic payments through Solana's speedy network.
Render (RENDER -0.97%), which provides decentralized GPU computing power for AI applications through its blockchain, could attract more AI agents. Another potential winner is Chainlink (LINK -1.18%), the oracle network that feeds external real-time data (like news, weather, and stock tickers) to developer-driven blockchains like Ethereum and Solana.
Cryptocurrencies that aren't particularly scarce or useful -- like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu -- will likely become even less relevant in this market. This shift could take a few years to play out, but it will likely separate the winners from the losers in the crowded cryptocurrency market.
