Original Text: Peter Schroeder
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
Before the birth of the internet, personal computers had already demonstrated their revolutionary power. In the 1990s, the widespread adoption of personal computers fundamentally changed the way people handled everyday tasks, significantly improving work efficiency and quality of life. However, despite their powerful capabilities, these computers remained isolated independent systems, limited to closed environments.
The emergence of the internet completely changed this landscape. Computers suddenly gained the ability to connect to a vast world of information and a global network of users. These previously independent machines transformed into gateways to infinite possibilities, enabling instant communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing on a global scale. This groundbreaking innovation ultimately shaped today's technology-driven modern society.
Currently, currency is experiencing a similar historic turning point. Traditionally, currency primarily serves three basic functions: a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. With the emergence of stablecoins, currency begins to gain all the advantages of the internet, creating conditions for the rise of AI agents. As industry expert Nic Carter says: 'Stablecoins are the Starlink of finance.'
The market capitalization of stablecoins has now reached $200 billion, processing trillions of dollars in transactions monthly. By combining the stability of fiat currencies with the programmability of digital assets, stablecoins have become the infrastructure for internet-native currencies, opening new possibilities for the global decentralized financial system.
Artificial intelligence injects intelligent elements into this new monetary system. AI agents can:
Analyzing Vast Data
Predicting Market Trends
Achieving Unprecedented Scales of Automation
When this intelligence is combined with the seamless value transfer provided by stablecoins, a whole new world of possibilities opens up. For instance, investors can utilize AI to conduct real-time analysis of global financial data while using stablecoins for instant, secure trade execution.
The combination of stablecoins and AI creates an efficient, intelligent new financial ecosystem. AI can not only autonomously analyze data and perform tasks, but also directly interact with blockchain protocols, representing a fundamental transformation of the traditional financial system rather than just simple automation of financial processes.
The Three-Phase Evolution of Stablecoins
Stablecoins provide the scalability and reliability that AI agents need to operate autonomously.
Since its inception in 2014, stablecoins have processed over $60 trillion in transaction volume, currently accounting for about half of the total on-chain transaction volume.
While stablecoins have found a clear product-market fit and are ready for the development of AI agents, their application scenarios will unfold in phases. As Robbie Petersen mentioned in the article 'The Role of Cryptocurrency in the Agent Economy', this process will go through three distinct phases:
Phase 1: Human-Machine Interaction (Now)
Currently, this is the closest to this phase. For example, the shopping feature recently launched by Perplexity allows agents to make purchases on behalf of users. Although stablecoin functionality has not yet been integrated, a full rollout of such features is not far off.
As Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital, stated: 'AI is ruthless because it has no emotions. It won't be swayed by a steak dinner, won't be taken to a basketball game, and won't be persuaded by a CEO. It is merely an agent that looks at API endpoints and writes code to accomplish tasks.' This indicates that AI agents will choose the most accessible and efficient systems, unaffected by human factors such as marketing and business development. Crossmint is building tools for AI agents to leverage stablecoins like USDC.
Phase 2: Machine-Human Interaction (Emerging)
This phase is developing rapidly. According to Delphi Digital researcher Robbie, this phase is characterized by AI agents being able to autonomously initiate transactions with humans. This trend has already manifested in certain areas, including AI trading systems executing trades, smart home systems purchasing electricity based on time-of-use pricing, and automated inventory management systems restocking based on demand forecasts.
MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) bots are a typical representative of this phase. In the past three years, these bots have processed over $430 million in transactions using stablecoins, completing nearly 200 million trades.
MEV bots are automated programs capable of identifying and exploiting opportunities such as arbitrage, liquidation, and front-running in blockchain transactions. Traditional MEV bots operate based on rule-based algorithms, monitoring transaction pools, executing trades, and reordering transactions to generate profits through preset strategies.
These robots utilize machine learning techniques to predict market trends, optimize trading layouts, and can adapt in real-time to market changes, showcasing the technological advancements of cryptocurrency agents. In this process, stablecoins play a key role, providing the stability and liquidity needed for robots to execute high-frequency, low-risk strategies.
The increasing complexity of these robots reflects a broader trend: AI agents, robots, and automated systems are becoming dominant in the blockchain ecosystem. The success of MEV bots is just one example of the scaling application of stablecoins, but it clearly demonstrates how AI agents and robots are beginning to broadly influence market operations. This expanded influence signals that the cryptocurrency market is entering a new era of greater automation and intelligence.
Phase 3: Machine-to-Machine Interaction (Future)
This phase is already showing signs. In August of this year, Coinbase first incubated AI-to-AI trading using USDC.
As Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated: 'AI agents may not be able to open bank accounts, but they can have cryptocurrency wallets. They can now use USDC on Base to conduct instant, global, free transactions with humans, merchants, or other AIs.'
Stablecoins provide AI agents with an efficient, liquid, and permissionless trading medium, while AI injects intelligent elements into blockchain operations, achieving a smarter, faster, and more efficient system. The impact of AI on AI trading will be profound and widespread, and the development of this field is worth ongoing attention.
The Perfect Fit of Stablecoins and AI-Driven Applications
Programmable Liquidity
Currently, one of the most attractive application scenarios for stablecoins is programmable liquidity, allowing AI agents to access and deploy funds instantly. So far in 2024, the global DeFi market's trading volume has exceeded $1.3 trillion, with stablecoins accounting for a significant share of liquidity.
Companies like Velodrome and Aerodrome Finance are innovating automated market maker (AMM) mechanisms by introducing a voting escrow (ve) token model to facilitate community-driven liquidity distribution. By integrating Layer 2 networks such as Optimism and Base, this model ensures the efficiency and scalability of fund deployment.
AI can dynamically optimize fund pool allocations, fee structures, and rewards based on market conditions and user behavior by achieving programmable liquidity, thereby enhancing the efficiency and adaptability of stablecoin liquidity supply.
These developments are driving the continued growth of the DeFi market. According to VanEck's predictions, by 2025, DeFi will reach new heights, with DEX trading volume reaching $4 trillion and total locked value reaching $200 billion, mainly due to liquidity and adoption driven by AI-related tokens, consumer-facing dApps, and tokenized assets.
Cross-Border Payments
Cross-border payments are another area with enormous potential for stablecoins and AI agents. The global remittance market reached $883 billion in 2023, and it is expected to grow to $913 billion by 2025. Traditional remittance services face issues of high fees (averaging around 6% globally) and long processing times (which can take days). Stablecoins are disrupting this market with their advantages of instant settlement and extremely low costs. When combined with AI agents, this process becomes even more seamless: AI agents can analyze exchange rates, identify the most cost-effective routes, and autonomously execute transfers.
As Circle co-founder Jeremy Allaire discussed at the Circle Forum in Hong Kong, stablecoins, because of their focus on programmability, trust, and transparency, have become the ideal tool for AI agents. They provide immutable transaction records on-chain, ensuring that the actions of AI agents are auditable and verifiable. This programmable trust is crucial for connecting the human and machine economies.
AI agents supported by this stable, programmable liquidity are transforming these transactions into smarter, faster, and more cost-effective workflows. From optimizing DeFi strategies to automating global commerce, the synergy between stablecoins and AI agents is upgrading the way value flows across systems.
Future Outlook
As the share of AI-driven economic activities continues to grow, stablecoins are becoming a key infrastructure for this transformation. Their stability, speed, and accessibility make them an ideal monetary vehicle for AI agents, driving the formation of a smarter, more efficient, and more inclusive financial system.
AI agents powered by stablecoins simplify complex financial tasks, enabling anyone with internet access to participate. Users can create wallets and transact with stablecoins just by conversing with the AI agent, without needing to understand all the complexities of finance. For example, individuals lacking specialized financial knowledge can delegate portfolio management of any amount to an AI agent, earning stablecoin yields through DeFi. What users see is simply a stable savings account based on the dollar generating passive income.
These agents can automatically rebalance investments, optimize yields, and even obtain loans, lowering the barriers to participating in decentralized finance in the background while presenting a simple user interface. This has profound implications for financial inclusion, especially in areas with limited traditional banking services.
In the payment sector, the advantages of improved efficiency have begun to emerge. In 2023, the global payment industry processed $18 trillion in transactions, generating $2.4 trillion in revenue, primarily from fees.
AI agents reduce friction in financial workflows by automating trading and decision-making processes. With the near-zero transaction costs of stablecoins, AI agents can minimize this 'payment tax', providing businesses and consumers with faster and more economical transaction methods.
More exciting is the creation of new economic models and markets. As AI agents autonomously trade using stablecoins, entirely new industries and ecosystems are emerging, and a machine-to-machine economy (where autonomous devices and systems exchange value directly) is becoming a reality. This has the potential to significantly enhance global economic productivity, reduce efficiency losses, and eliminate intermediaries, unlocking resources for growth and innovation.
The integration of stablecoins and AI agents is changing the way value flows, enabling an unprecedentedly fast, intelligent, and efficient autonomous economic system.
As the ecosystem evolves, stablecoins will continue to serve as a pillar of this revolution, providing the necessary stability and liquidity for the prosperity of AI agents. When programmable currency meets intelligent automation, this is just the beginning of possibilities, and the future opportunities are as vast as the digital economy itself.
