HUGE NEWS! BLACKROCK REVEALS CRYPTO AI AGENT PLANS! MASTERCARD STELLAR XLM & BINANCE CIRCLE USDC!

Tony Edward (0:05)

Hey folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. I'm your host Tony Edward. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button, as well as the thumbs up button, and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform, such as Spotify or Apple, please be sure to follow and leave a five-star rating. Okay folks, we have to start with BlackRock because they came out with an interesting research paper. Here's what they posted on X. Our latest research paper explores the growing connection between AI and digital assets and explains why broad AI adoption may drive new demand, utility, and applications across the digital asset economy. Now, we've been talking about this where AI agents will use stable coins and digital assets because we're headed to a world where people are going to have multiple AI agents, and then you're going to be doing cross-border transactions, and stable coins are best suited for that instant settlement. And we're seeing a lot of crypto companies are building the infrastructure for that, AI agent, crypto wallets, and much more. But with BlackRock coming out and saying, hey, we've done the research and here's what we think is going to happen, that's significant. And this shows that this is going to be a huge narrative as we enter deeper into the bull market. So huge confirmation from the world's largest asset manager. So let me give you some details on what they put together here. They highlighted three main takeaways. Number one, LLMs, language learning models, and blockchains share common computer native digital foundations. They said LLMs convert language into numerical tokens, while blockchains convert money and assets into digital tokens. Both translate real world inputs into standardized formats that machines can process and use natively. Number two, agentic commerce requires machine native payment rails. AI agents increasingly need always on rails built for high frequency, low value payments. Stable coins, blockchains, and emerging protocols can provide programmable infrastructure from machine to machine commerce. Number three, compute is emerging as a new and potentially large market for digital assets. Autonomous AI agents could eventually source, optimize, and pay for compute in real time. As contracts standardize and financial derivatives develop, compute could become a large investible asset class. So very interesting, and I think they're spot on, guys. I mean, I think we see where the puck is heading, where the world is heading to, AI agents, humanoid robots, and crypto and blockchain. We have this convergence of these different technologies, they're going to complement each other. So I don't imagine that AI agents are going to be using the traditional payment rails. Now, could some be using credit cards? Sure, you could put your credit card in there, you can attach it to your crypto wallet. I just interviewed the folks at MoonPay and they talked about that. They're building a crypto wallet, but it can also have a credit card. So it gives you that option, depending on the merchant or the vendor, and what they accept and what they don't accept. So BlackRock, confirming a major use case, and I think a huge narrative as this bull market continues. So we could potentially see a lot of the AI tokens that did well in the last cycle start to re-emerge again.

This is something we'll follow in the podcast. I'll keep you guys updated from taking a stake in those AI tokens again.

But I think we see once again where the puck is heading, and this is pretty big. Now speaking of AI agents, Cardano joins Solana, the XRP Ledger in a race to power AI agent payments. So every blockchain for the most part is preparing for this use case, in addition to tokenization and stable coins. So the official X402 kit now includes Cardano tools for apps and AI agents to pay with ADA and other network tokens, though the facilitator has so far only been tested on pre-production. So again, a lot of different blockchains preparing for this use case, and BlackRock giving the confirmation overall that this is the path forward, and machines are going to transact with each other and with human beings, and they're going to use blockchain and stable coins. So there's another thesis I have, and that is humanoid robots as they're connected to certain networks, right, to download their constitution and more, that will be powered by blockchain. I'm not sure how many of you recall, I interviewed the CEO and co-founder of OpenMind, which is building an Android software for robots. So just as you have Android software for different phones, right, Google phones, Samsung and others, you're going to have different robot makers, and you need a software that can run on them. And guess what? That software that they're building is using blockchain tech. It's an Ethereum-based software, and it also allows for the robot to have a crypto wallet. So we're talking humanoid robots now. So again, what's being built is really fascinating, and blockchain and crypto will be a part of it. I do believe that blockchain will have to be used to police AI and police deepfake content and police humanoid robots, right? If you want to prevent a Skynet situation, a la Terminator, or if you've seen the movie Chappie where a robot gets hacked, you need blockchain tech, right? And in addition to quantum, but blockchain is going to have to be the big one because you need that cryptography layer, right, folks? So this is very bullish for blockchains. And if you're holding the native tokens for these respective blockchains, that puts you in a very good position because those blockchain networks will grow in value. As they get more utility, their native tokens will grow in value as well. Now, we have huge news around MasterCard. We're seeing the credit card companies go all in on crypto in many different ways. So MasterCard owned BVNK Finance, integrates the Stellar Blockchain, the XLM token now, that's the native token of the Stellar Blockchain, into its stablecoin payments platform, giving enterprise customers across 130 plus countries another high-speed settlement rail through a single API.