AI agents could solve crypto’s user problem
Chappy Asel says autonomous software may be more natural users of wallets and stablecoins than humans, though agentic payments remain mostly theoretical.
By Sam Reynolds, AI Boost|Edited by Shaurya Malwa May 8, 2026, 5:31 a.m. 2 min readMake preferred on
What to know:
- Chappy Asel argues that crypto’s most important role in AI will be powering low-latency, programmable payment rails for autonomous software agents rather than consumer-facing chatbots.
- While stablecoins and smart contracts could enable always-on, micro-sized “agentic payments,” real-world adoption remains limited as most companies still rely on centralized APIs and traditional payment systems.
- Asel says the near-term overlap between crypto and AI is more likely to center on infrastructure such as compute, data centers and energy, with bitcoin miners and other crypto firms repositioning to serve AI workloads and future machine-to-machine commerce.
The crypto industry’s embrace of AI is less about chatbots and more about building financial infrastructure for autonomous machines, says Chappy Asel, a former Apple engineer and founder of AI nonprofit The AI Collective.
Speaking at Consensus Miami, Asel, founder of The AI Collective, a global nonprofit AI community with more than 200,000 members across 150+ chapters, argued that as software agents increasingly make economic decisions on behalf of users and businesses, they will need payment systems capable of handling low-latency, programmable transactions at scale.
“When agents make the majority of financial decisions, economic decisions, how do they transact with each other?” Asel said during the panel. “You want them to be highly systematic, mechanistic. You want very small, micro transactions. You want very low latency.”
Asel, who previously worked on Apple’s Vision Pro and early Apple Intelligence efforts before launching The AI Collective, framed the convergence of crypto and AI through a practical lens.
“The number one thing that I've heard kind of throughout this conference... even my friends who only know about AI, they know nothing about blockchain, is they've heard about agentic payments,” he said.
Stablecoins already offer 24/7 settlement and smart contracts allow programmable execution. Marrying them together is the only logical way agentic payments — without a human in the middle — can become mainstream.
Still, the thesis remains early. AI agents are still nascent, and many companies today rely on centralized APIs and conventional payment systems. Attempts to build “agentic payments” infrastructure have so far generated little meaningful commercial activity, suggesting the narrative may be developing faster than actual demand.
Even if machine-to-machine commerce takes longer to materialize, Asel argued the broader overlap between crypto and AI may emerge elsewhere first.
“A lot of people will tell you, oh, it’s the models aren’t good enough,” Asel said. “It’s none of that. It’s literally compute, data centers, energy that is driving pretty much all decision-making in AI right now.”
That framing reflects a wider shift in the AI economy, where access to chips, power, and data center capacity is becoming the defining competitive advantage.
Parts of the crypto industry are already moving to capture that opportunity. Several bitcoin miners have spent the past year repositioning toward AI hosting and high-performance computing, betting that infrastructure originally built for mining can be repurposed for AI workloads.
For Asel, the practical advice for founders navigating the uncertainty was simple: experiment.
“When the world is more uncertain than it ever has been... things will only get crazier,” he said. “That warrants that you are spending more and more time playing around with the new technology.”
Crypto’s consumer adoption problem has always been partly a usability problem.
But AI agents do not need onboarding tutorials, aren't intimidated by MetaMask, or need help remembering seed phrases. If autonomous software becomes a meaningful economic actor, crypto may have found a user base that actually thinks in code.
Consensus Miami 2026AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.More For You
Bitcoin slips to $79,000, DOGE leads majors losses as negative funding rates set 10-year record
By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Sam Reynolds1 hour ago
Bitcoin pulled back from this week's $81,500 high after U.S. forces fired on Iranian targets, while crypto futures markets logged their 67th straight day of negative funding rates, the longest streak in a decade per K33 Research.
What to know:
- Bitcoin has pulled back from a midweek high above $81,000 amid renewed U.S.-Iran tensions, but it remains higher on the week alongside mostly resilient global risk assets.
- Funding rates for bitcoin futures have been negative for 67 straight days, creating a powerful setup for a potential short squeeze if prices...
Bitcoin slips to $79,000, DOGE leads majors losses as negative funding rates set 10-year record
1 hour ago
Coinbax wins $20,000 PitchFest prize at Consensus Miami for stablecoin compliance
8 hours ago
Privacy and accountability can coexist onchain, say panelists at Consensus Miami
8 hours ago
AI agents and large corporates will lead the next stablecoin boom, executives say
8 hours ago
Coinbase stock declines 5% after missing Q1 estimates on crypto slowdown
9 hours ago
CZ floats Binance.US revival to give U.S. users access to global crypto liquidity
11 hours agoTop Stories
Donald Trump Jr. denies rumors World Liberty Financial is falling apart
11 hours ago
'DeFi is not dead,' it’s going mainstream with AI agents, crypto executives agree
11 hours ago
Aave to expand collateral and listing standards after KelpDAO exploit
15 hours ago
Consensus Miami Day 3: Real-time coverage and highlights from on the ground
16 hours ago
Bitcoin treasury firms outline $3 trillion opportunity in BTC-backed digital credit at Consensus
17 hours ago
