According to Woofun AI, the BLK.US (BlackRock) digital asset research team released “Machine Native Economy: How Digital Assets Connect Intelligence, Commerce, and Computing Power” on September 22, 2026, asserting that the payment demand for autonomous AI systems is forcing changes in financial infrastructure, and stablecoins are the only suitable solution.
The structural mismatch between traditional financial channels and machine-to-machine transactions is becoming increasingly prominent. The lag between ACH and credit card networks in settlement timelines, processing fees, and intermediaries makes it difficult to meet the high frequency and low cost requirements of algorithms to purchase GPU computing power or data access in real time. In contrast, the stablecoin market has exploded: as of September 2026, the circulating supply surpassed $300 billion; adjusted trading volume exceeded $11 trillion in 2025.
Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that since 2020, the compound annual growth rate of stablecoin trading volume is about 80%, far exceeding ACH's 8.5%. Furthermore, new digital asset classes linked to tokenized computing power are emerging, although their regulatory rules and market standards are still in their infancy.
The penetration rate of AI agents in payment agreements is rapidly increasing. According to TRM Labs analysis, AI agents currently account for between 0.6% and 7.5% of major payment agreement activity. With Amazon (AMZN.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), and Google (GOOGL.US) expected to achieve a total cloud business revenue of about 1.1 trillion US dollars by 2030, and the cumulative investment in AI infrastructure between 2025 and 2030 is likely to exceed 5 trillion US dollars, a restructuring of the underlying payment logic is inevitable.
The market pattern is evolving from homogenization to functional differentiation. Although Tether's USDT and Circle's (CRCL.US)'s USDC still dominate transaction volume, the AI payment scenario has spawned a specific need for deep programmability, cross-chain interoperability, and enterprise-grade compliance features.
Notably, standards for the tokenized computing power market are still being established, and the US stablecoin legislation process is slow, leaving complex variables for future regulatory arbitrage and technology iterations.