Forget Nvidia: The next big AI trade could be crypto and blockchain

That shift is already beginning. Robinhood launched AI-powered investing tools in May that let agents trade stocks and make purchases for users. CEO Vlad Tenev has said AI agents will eventually rival the capabilities of human traders, while OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to build increasingly autonomous systems that can navigate software and complete complex tasks on their own.

For Kaul, those agents introduce a problem that today’s payment systems weren’t built to solve.

Many transactions between AI agents could be worth only fractions of a cent, such as paying for an API call, a second of computing power or access to a dataset. Traditional payment networks become expensive when fees cost more than the transaction itself.

That’s where Kaul believes blockchains come in.

She argued public blockchain networks are better suited to machine-to-machine payments because they offer programmable transactions, cryptographic identity and near-instant settlement. Instead of relying on banks or card networks, AI agents could hold digital assets and pay one another directly over blockchain rails.

If that happens at scale, demand for blockchain networks could grow alongside AI adoption.

Since agents would need native cryptocurrencies to pay network fees, Kaul argued rising transaction volumes could increase demand for those tokens while generating more revenue for developer incentives, network security and decentralized applications.

Her argument echoes a broader vision put forward by Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who has argued that the rise of agentic AI and blockchain represents a single technological shift rather than two separate ones.

In a recent paper, Allaire said AI is driving the cost of knowledge work toward zero while blockchain and programmable digital money are doing the same for payments, settlement and coordination. As businesses rely more heavily on specialized AI agents, he argued those agents will become economic actors that buy services, hire other agents and exchange value autonomously. Blockchain networks, digital identities and programmable money would provide the infrastructure needed to support those interactions at internet scale.

That vision extends beyond payments. Allaire argued AI-native companies could increasingly operate on-chain, with tokens representing ownership and governance, while software pricing shifts from monthly subscriptions to pay-per-task models as AI agents become both the buyers and sellers of digital services.

For investors, Kaul said the implication is straightforward. AI portfolios have largely focused on public technology companies building models and infrastructure. If autonomous AI agents become a meaningful part of the economy, she argues, blockchain networks and the cryptocurrencies that power them could emerge as another way to gain exposure to AI’s next stage of growth.