Advancements in artificial intelligence will create new use cases for public blockchains, ranging from transactions by AI agents to verifiable digital records, according to Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale. He shared his insights on the topic.
Pandl identifies payments as the most apparent source of new demand. Digital assistants executing tasks on behalf of users require programmable wallets for autonomous fund management and expenditure.
He believes this will drive the need for infrastructure supporting micropayments, cross-border transactions, automated trading, and risk management. Pandl highlights Ethereum and Solana as suitable networks, as their open ledgers enable programmable transactions around the clock.
Another area is verifiable AI activity records. As more tasks are delegated to algorithms, companies will need to document which models, data, and rules were used in decision-making. According to the researcher, public blockchains can serve as independent registries for such information.
This mechanism can also be applied to the identification of individuals and digital agents, as well as the storage of their reputations. Pandl cites the World project as an example.
A third factor is the concentration of computing resources, capital, and AI control among a few companies. Decentralized networks, where participants provide resources and partake in ownership and management of the infrastructure, could offer an alternative.
However, the practical benefits of such integration remain a topic of debate. In June, researchers from the IC3 consortium noted that many claims about blockchain’s benefits for AI require further evidence. For instance, while a distributed ledger entry can confirm the existence of certain data at a specific time, it does not inherently prove the model’s accuracy.
In July, Franklin Templeton identified AI agents as potential drivers of crypto payments, suggesting that blockchain could facilitate transactions between autonomous programs without constant human involvement.
